A refreshing companion in our lives

Menthol, also known as peppermint camphor, is currently one of the most applied monomeric aroma chemicals in the world. With a pleasant minty aroma and the cooling effect on the skin, it is widely used in personal and home care products, food and beverage, and medicine, among others.

In daily life, menthol can be used as an odorant for toothpaste, perfume, beverage, candy, etc., adding flavor to our life.

In medicine, menthol can be used as an embrocation to relief local itching and pain and give off a cooling and anesthetic effect locally. When ingested, it can effectively clear away heat and quench thirst, and helps relieve cough and phlegm. Applied when staying up late or having a headache, it can effectively refresh your mind and relieve headache.

Over the years, the market demand of menthol’s downstream application has been growing and people’s habit of using menthol products has been forming. At present, about 30,000 – 35,000 tons of menthol are consumed directly per year.

Menthol can be extracted naturally from peppermint oil or synthesized from citral, thymol, myrcene, etc. Naturally extracted menthol has unstable yield and high cost, therefore cannot meet the growing market demand. In comparison, synthesized menthol has stable yield and low cost, therefore is favored by downstream businesses, and is the key development direction in the future.

Menthol developed by NHU

NHU sticks to the concept of integrated, serialized, large-scale, and coordinated development and the demand-driven R&D mobilizing resources in and out of the company. Since the lab scale test in 2012, we have made several breakthroughs and finally successfully developed the whole processes of menthol production in 2022. This marks that NHU now has the capability of developing the core industrial chains from citral to menthol, which can effectively alleviate the cost pressure of downstream enterprises and fill the gap of the aroma chemical industrial chains.

Advanced processes secure quality products

The flavor and fragrance production base in Weifang, Shandong Province adopts continuous process production and food-grade automatic packaging, which can effectively reduce the impurities in the products. Advanced DCS operating system and various state-of-the-art equipment are used to achieve automatic stable control of the continuous process and programmed precise control of batch process, ensuring the world class quality of the products.

Considerate service assists market expansion

Following the principle of customer-oriented development, NHU provides quality products and considerate services to customers across over 100 countries and regions around world, with an aim of going beyond their expectations.

As a leader in the flavor and fragrance industry, NHU adheres to the idea of developing based on the needs of people. Leveraging our world leading platform of synthesis and fermentation, we explore the world of aroma chemicals with the mission of Exploring Chemistry Improving Life, striving to bring better life to mankind.