1841 Entrepreneur Lars Johan Hierta, founder of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, founds Liljeholmens Stearinfabrik in Stockholm to manufacture stearin candles.

1870 Lars Johan Hierta helps found Stockholms Superfosfat Fabriks AB in Stockholm to produce superphosphate. The company later diversifies into chlorate, carbide and calcium nitrate production at several locations.

1921 Armour Meat Packing in Chicago, Illinois, USA, develops fatty acid fractionation as a way to use byproducts of animal slaughtering.

1931 Superphosphate production ends and a new potassium nitrate factory opens a year later in Lungaverk, Sweden.

1937 Berol founded in Södertälje, Sweden, by fishing enthusiast Bernström and his friend Olson, a chemist, to make coatings to reinforce cotton fishing lines. The name of the company is derived from the first letters of their last names.   Within a few years, the company is established as a manufacturer of water-proofing agents for shoes, leather jackets and sheepskin.

1941 Stockholms Superphosphate Fabrik begins production of carbide and calcium nitrate at a new plant in Stockvik, Sweden.

1942 Berol, now with six employees, extended its product range to include products to protect food from being destroyed by wet conditions for the defense industry.

1944 Stockholms Superphosphate Fabriks begins making plastics and starts trial production of synthetic rubber.

1945 Stockholms Superphosphate Fabrik opens a PVC plant at Stockvik.

Berol moves to Mölndal, Sweden, and begins producing non-ionic, surface active products for washing powder as well as adhesives and paint improvers.

Swedish forest products company Mo and Domsjö (MoDo), which was preparing to produce ethylene glycol from its paper mill waste products in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, buys Berol.

1947 Stockholms Superphosphate Fabrik takes over Liljeholmens Stearinfabrik.

1949 Armour Industrial Chemical Co. opens world’s first commercial fatty amine plant in McCook, Illinois, USA.

1959 A joint venture between Armour Industrial Chemical and Dan Hess in England is established to fractionate fatty acids and prepare nitrogen derivatives.

1960 MoDo builds a petrochemical ethylene plant in the ice-free, deep water port of Stenungsund, Sweden, in an agreement with Stockholms Superphosphate Fabriks (Fosfatbolaget) and the U.S. oil company ESSO.

Over the course of the decade, MoDo buys more chemical companies.

1962 Armour Industrial Chemical acquires Kessler, a specialty ester manufacturer, in part as an outlet for its fatty acids.

Fatty acid production begins at the Kortman Schulte factory in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for the production of soft soap.

1964 Armour Industrial Chemical opens plant in Saskatoon, Canada, to produce tallow and coconut fatty acids, amines and tallow amindes.

1969 Greyhound, a conglomerate, buys Armour.

Dutch textile company AKU and salt maker KZO merge to form Akzo.

1970 Stockholms Superphosphate Fabrik (Fosfatbolaget) changes its name to Kema Nord. Liljeholmens Stearinfabriks’ candle production moves to Oscarshamn, Sweden, and its chemicals business becomes a division within the mother company called Kema Nord – Specialty Chemicals Division.

Akzo acquires Armour from Greyhound and forms Akzona, (for Akzo, North America) with 55% ownership. The Armour’s former chemicals division is renamed Armak.

  

1971 MoDo consolidates its chemicals companies into a new company called MoDoKemi, headquartered in Stenungsund. The Berol name disappears as a registered company. Akzo acquires the Noury & van der Lande plant in Emmerich, Germany, to manufacture alkyd resin for the paint industry.

1972 Kema Nord’s paper chemicals business is combined into one product group within specialty chemicals.

1973 MoDo sells the chemical business to the state. The company's name was later changed to Berol Kemi.

CascoGard joins Kema Nord’s specialties division, which develops into the production of agricultural chemiocals such as weed killers, insecticides and fungicides.

Armak’s Morris, Illinois, USA plant begins production of fattyalkyl nitrogen derivatives.

1974 Berol Kemi buys from MoDo the production units of cellulose derivatives at Domsjö, near Örnskölsdvik.

1978 Kema Nord buys Nitro Nobel and changes its name to Kema Nobel, while the specialty chemicals division changes its name to KenoGard. By this time, the key chemicals are organic specialty chemicals for plant and wood protection, disinfection and hygiene, paper production, plastics production, oil production, road construction, fertilizer production and mineral purification.

1979 Major investment made in modernizing  and expanding cellulose derivatives plant in Domsjö.

1980 Malaysian Oleochemicals Sdn Bhd incorporated.

1982 Akzo buys remaining stock in Azona.

1983 The food systems groups of KenoGard and Kema Nobel combine to form Probel, which produces specialty chemicals and systems for agriculture, food and technical industries. This business is in turn divided into two areas, Kenogard, for plant and wood protection, and Surfactants, for initiators, detergents, anti-caking and ScanRoad.

1984 Bofors buys Kema Nobel.

Akzo changes the name of Armak to Akzo Chemie America, Armak Chemicals.

1984 Akzo changes its name to Akzo Chemicals, Inc and drops the designation Armak.

1985 Bofors forms Nobel Industries Sweden. Probel becomes Nobel Biotech within Specialty Chemicals. KenoGard Specialty Chemicals becomes Kennobel.

1987 Akzo America buys specialty chemicals division of Stauffer Chemical Co.

Akzo Nobel forms joint venture with Lam Soon.

1988 Nobel Industries buys Berol Kemi from Procordia and merges it with Kenobel to form a new company: Berol Nobel AB.

1994 Akzo Nobel founded through the merger of the Dutch company Akzo and Nobel Industries. Business unit Surfactants formed with headquarters in Stenungsund, Sweden.

1997 Akzo Nobel Surfactants opens an office in Singapore to coordinate area marketing and secure future production.

1998 Ackros chemicals, a joint venture between Akzo Nobel and Harcross chemicals, becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Akzo Nobel.

2002 Akzo Nobel Surfactants acquires the industrial specialties surfactants group from Crompton Corporation, nearly doubling the size of its North American operations.

2003 Production begins at new Akzo Nobel Surfactants plant in Singapore.