polymerguru

An agreement signed yesterday by Italian biotech company Bio-on and Cristal Union will see France’s first facility for the production of PHAs bioplastic from sugar beet co-products. The two companies, operating in sustainable biochemistry and sugar, alcohol and bioethanol production, will work together to build a production site with a 5 thousand tons/year output, expandable to 10 thousand tons/year. Requiring a 70 million euro investment, the facility will be located at a Cristal Union site and will be the most advanced biopolymers production site in the world. The new factory will create 50 new jobs specialised in fermentation to produce this revolutionary bioplastic. PHAs, or polyhydroxyalkanoates, are bioplastics that can replace a number of traditional polymers currently made with petrochemical processes using hydrocarbons. The PHAs developed by Bio-on guarantee the same thermo-mechanical properties with the advantage of being completely naturally biodegradable.“We are inves...

The U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration announced a $2 million grant to the Port of Port Angeles to retrofit a building that will house the industrial and workforce training facilities for the Composite Recycling Technology Center (CRTC).  “The Obama Administration has taken unprecedented steps to support workforce development and green initiatives and is deeply committed to strengthening America’s workforce and protecting the environment,” said Secretary Pritzker in the U.S. Department of Commerce news release. “This EDA investment supports recycling and environmental stewardship and will provide critical job training in Washington.”  This federal grant was made possible by a $1 million commitment from the Washington State Clean Energy Fund, combined with an additional $1 million in local government funds for the needed dollar-for-dollar match.  "This $2 million federal grant brings the Composite Recycling Technology Center one step closer t...

Evonik  Industries has strengthened its position in  C4-based products  and has successfully, and on time, put into operation new production plants in Antwerp (Belgium). Also in the Marl Chemical Park (Germany), the C4 capacities are being increased. For this, the company has invested a total amount in the three-digit million ranges (Euro) in the two sites.  The new plants result in an expansion of capacities for  butadiene  in Antwerp, for the  plasticizer alcohol Isononano l (Marl) as well as for the antiknock agent  MTBE  (Marl and Antwerp). According to market analyses, the global demand for these products increases by two to five percent per year.  "By expanding our C4 capacities and the necessary and important investments into the supply of raw materials at our sites, we are sustainably strengthening our market positions. At the same time we are supporting our customers’ growth plans in Europe and worldwide," said Klaus Engel, C...

Evonik Industries demonstrated for the first time in a pilot plant that innovative SILP catalyst systems can work reliably for about 2,000 hours. The high service life is important proof that these economically and ecologically interesting catalyst systems can be used on an industrial scale. SILP stands for Supported Ionic Liquid Phase and describes a technology with which homogeneous catalysts can be applied to solid materials, such as silicon oxides or aluminum oxide, with the help of ionic liquids.  Scientists used the new catalyst systems in hydroformylation, an industrially important reaction that is used in the chemical industry to recover aldehydes from olefins and syngas. Among other things, aldehydes are a precursor for plasticizer alcohols; Evonik is one of the largest producers of C9/C10 plasticizer alcohols in Europe. Prof. Robert Franke, who is responsible for Innovation Management Hydroformylation in Evonik's Performance Materials Segment says, "With our researc...