Engelhard
US catalytic converter company bought in 2006 by BASF

Engelhard Corporation was an American Fortune 500 company headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, United States. It is credited with developing the first production catalytic converter. In 2006, the German chemical manufacturer BASF bought Engelhard for US$5 billion.
Early history
The company was started by Charles W. Engelhard Sr. in 1902 when he purchased the Charles F. Croselmire Company in Newark, New Jersey with the proceeds from his wife's dowry.
His wife Emilie Maria was the daughter of German brandy distiller Friedrich Canthal de He subsequently founded the American Platinum Works in 1903 and acquired several other companies. In 1904, he purchased Baker & Co., a platinum smelting and refining business located in Newark and in 1905, he established Hanovia Chemical and Manufacturing Company also in Newark. Engelhard became the world's largest refiner and fabricator of platinum, gold and silver, a producer of silver and silver alloys in mill forms, operator of the world's largest precious metals smelter. They also developed liquid gold for decorative applications.
Merger and spinoff of Phibro
In 1958, Engelhard's son Charles Jr.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1342078. VIAF identifies the subject as 123206241. The Library of Congress control number is n84124859. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1902, 1903 and 1904.
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This entry incorporates text from “Engelhard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.