Stora Enso Acquires Cellutech, a Wood-based Components Manufacturer

Stora Enso has increased its ownership up to 100% in Cellutech AB. The company specializes in the development of new materials and applications based on cellulose, micro-fibrillated cellulose (MFC) and other wood-based components.

Replacing Fossil-based Materials with Renewable Ones

The acquisition of Cellutech supports Stora Enso’s vision of replacing fossil-based materials with renewable ones originating from wood. The acquired company works, among others, in the areas of foams for packaging and hydroponics where the markets are continuously growing. Cellulosic foams can, for example, be used in packaging to replace polystyrenes which are the most widely used plastics.

Adding a New Dimension to Fiber and Cellulose Capabilities

“The acquisition of Cellutech will add a new dimension to our fiber and cellulose capabilities particularly in lightweight cellulose foams and spheres. We are investing in technologies and expertise that will further broaden application development competence in Stora Enso’s Biomaterials Division,” says Markus Mannström, EVP, Stora Enso Biomaterials.

Established in 2013, Cellutech is an agile team of eight scientists and researchers serving as a link between academia and industry. Cellutech was formed to take world class scientific research developed at SweTree Technologies and Wallenberg Wood Science Center and develop the ideas into commercially successful technologies and products.

The transaction will not have a material financial impact on the Group.

Source:Stora Enso

New Copolyester Filaments to Advance FDM 3D Printing by ElogioAM at Formnext 2018

ElogioAM B.V., a newly formed Joint Venture between Swedish Perstorp AB and Dutch 3D4Makers B.V, continues to introduce its new filament solutions to advance FDM additive manufacturing. Following its breakthrough, easy to print Facilan™ C8 delivering superior finish, mechanical properties and minimum post-processing for demanding prototyping, models and spare parts, ElogioAM now introduce its new addition, Facilan HT.

Designed to Overcome Common Product Limitations

FDM Additive Manufacturing requires more durable and high strength materials to take full benefits of 3D printing. PLA and PET are of limited use for durable application due to their relatively low temperature resistance while ABS suffers of warping and relatively low strength.

• Facilan HT is designed to address those common product limitations and specifically designed for 3D printing. 
• It is safe copolyester with high temperature resistance with heat deflection temperature of 89°C. 
• Its high stiffness enables design optimization for faster rigid part print jobs.

Like all Facilan products, it is designed to easily be printed on most conventional FDM printers available with minimum warping. It is fully amorphous and enables the production of translucent parts in the z direction. FacilanHT has been extensively tested during its development and the feedback has been very positive.

Facilan HT - Great Potential

3D Printed Coffee Cup Model from Facilan™ HT

Matthew Forrester, 3D printing Tech leader L`Oréal, France, said:
“Excellent technical support from the Elogio team, Facilan HT is as easy to print as PLA, with a good level of translucidity, perfect for our prototyping needs.”

Nomura Toshihito, J-Techno Inc. Digital Manufacturing Systems, Japan, said:
“Facilan HT is excellent; it is printing with no warping and good stability.”

Dick Potharst, Multi-3dPrint, the Netherlands, said:
“I tested Facilan HT on the DDDrop and the Ultimaker, very easy to print with and nice glossy shine.”

Imants Treidis, CEO, Mass Portal, Latvia, said:
“We are proud to work together with ElogioAM and showcase the Facilan HT at our booth. The material has great potential for applications where exceptional stability and simple printing process is a requirement.”

ElogioAM at Formnext 2018

Facilan HT is being showcased at Formnext, November 13-18th, 2018 on 3D printer manufacturer Mass Portal Booth stand 3.1 H89.
 
Source: ElogioAM B.V.

Ashland to Sell its Composites Business in Germany to INEOS Enterprises for USD 1.1 Bn

Ashland Global Holdings Inc. has recently announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Composites business and the butanediol (BDO) manufacturing facility in Marl, Germany, to INEOS Enterprises in a transaction valued at approximately $1.1 billion. The transaction is expected to close prior to the end of the June 2019 quarter, contingent on certain customary regulatory approvals, standard closing conditions and completion of required employee information and consultation processes.

Divestment to Become Premier in Chemical World

Ashland expects net proceeds from the sale to total approximately $1 billion and anticipates that proceeds primarily will be used for debt reduction. Prior to reporting its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2019, Ashland plans to update its outlook for both the first quarter and for the full 2019 fiscal year to reflect the impact of moving these businesses to discontinued operations.

Ashland's Composites unit is among the global leader in unsaturated polyester resins, vinyl ester resins and gel coats, while the BDO facility in Germany and related merchant products included in the agreement are part of Ashland's Intermediates and Solvents (I&S) segment. Ashland's Composites and Marl BDO facility have combined sales of more than $1.1 billion per year and approximately 1,300 employees. Ashland will retain its BDO plant in Lima, Ohio, to ensure consistent supply for the company's internal needs.

Placing itself in a Better Position

Bill Wulfsohn, Ashland chairman and chief executive officer, said:
"Composites and Marl are outstanding businesses with strong market positions and high-performing teams. At the same time, the divestiture of these businesses is consistent with Ashland's vision of becoming the premier specialty chemicals company. With a more streamlined and focused product portfolio, improved margins and reduced earnings volatility, Ashland will be better positioned to deliver sustained earnings growth and unlock significant value for shareholders. Over the past two years, we have taken specific actions to sustain and grow Ashland's premium mix while also improving our competitiveness, particularly within Specialty Ingredients. These actions are driving strong earnings growth, as evident in our fiscal 2018 financial results."

Privately owned INEOS is one of the world's largest manufacturers of chemicals and oil products, with annual sales of $60 billion and approximately 20,000 employees. The London-based company operates 171 sites in 24 countries.

Ashley Reed, CEO, INEOS Enterprises, said:
"We believe that the Ashland Composites business will have great potential for growth under INEOS ownership and we are looking forward to working with a great team of people who are determined to meet the developing needs of our customers."

Citi is acting as financial advisor to Ashland, and Squire Patton Boggs LLP is acting as legal advisor.

Source: Ashland Global Holdings Inc

Turning Steel Mill Emissions into Useful Chemicals and Plastics - Nouryon & Tata Steel

Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals), Tata Steel and the Port of Amsterdam have joined together to study the feasibility of a large green hydrogen cluster in the Amsterdam region. The three parties consider green hydrogen as vital for reaching climate targets and building a more circular economy, for example by combining it with emissions from steel manufacture to make new products.

Studying the Feasibility of Green Hydrogen Cluster

 

 As a first step, the parties will study the feasibility of a 100 megawatt water electrolysis facility to produce up to 15,000 tons of hydrogen per year as well as oxygen at Tata Steel’s IJmuiden site, near Amsterdam. By using renewable electricity, the initial unit will enable a carbon saving of up to 350,000 tons of CO₂ per year, equivalent to the emissions of more than 40,000 households. A final investment decision is expected in 2021. The partner companies have the ambition to further scale up the technology.

Nouryon will operate the facility, while Tata Steel will use the oxygen to further enhance the sustainability of its production processes. The parties will jointly explore different routes to use hydrogen for turning steel mill emissions into useful chemicals and products. The Port of Amsterdam will focus on the infrastructure for further distribution of green hydrogen, which will be the basis for the development of new industries and zero-emission transport in the Amsterdam area.

 Sustainable Chemical Industry

“This partnership builds on our existing initiatives to support the development of a sustainable chemical industry,” said Knut Schwalenberg, Managing Director Industrial Chemicals at Nouryon. “Green hydrogen is a realistic alternative for fossil-based raw materials and enables new forms of green chemistry, such as using steel mill gas, CO₂, or waste to make plastics and move to new, circular value chains,” he said.

“Tata Steel is a strong supporter of hydrogen as a facilitator of the energy transition,” said Hans Fischer, CEO of Tata Steel Europe. “This project could be a stepping stone to make large quantities of affordable hydrogen available in the future to enable us to become a CO₂ neutral steel producer.”

Climate Neutral Circular Industry

Koen Overtoom, CEO Port of Amsterdam, added: “Large-scale production of green hydrogen, fueled by offshore wind, will enable the Amsterdam-North Sea canal region to make a leap forward towards a climate neutral circular industry. It will support our ambition towards synthetic fuels and synthetic kerosene and emission-free mobility.”

CO₂ Reduction Target of 49% by 2030

The recently presented Dutch Climate Law sets an ambitious CO₂ reduction target of 49% by 2030 compared to 1990. The parties believe that green hydrogen can make a significant contribution towards this target and aim to reach sufficient scale to absorb all emissions from Tata Steel’s plant in IJmuiden and use it for the production of new materials. The development of the green hydrogen cluster will also enable emissions-free buses and heavy transport in the entire Amsterdam area.

Source: Nouryon

Hexagon Composites to Supply Compressed Hydrogen Tanks for FCEV Serial Production

Hexagon Composites will supply compressed hydrogen tanks for serial production of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) to be launched by an automotive OEM.

Supporting Anticipated Production Activities

Hexagon is currently developing the tanks to support anticipated production activities as early as the 2020 timeframe. Production is planned to run for at least five years. Hexagon estimates the combined value for development and serial production to be in the range of USD 50 to 70 million (approximately NOK 0.4 billion to 0.6 billion).

Rick Rashilla, Senior Vice President of Hexagon Composites' Hydrogen Automotive business, said:
"This is a major contract for Hexagon and for the growing FCEV industry. Hexagon Composites is committed to investing resources into the success of this project and for the adoption of Hydrogen in combination with fuel-cell technology as a low-carbon alternative fuel for mobility applications. This selection further confirms our leading position as a light duty hydrogen tank developer for the FCEV industry."

 

 

 

 

Third Automotive OEM Contract

Jack Schimenti, Executive Vice President of Hexagon Composites, said:
"We are pleased to secure yet another major contract from a leading OEM and maintaining market leadership based on our integrity, attention to safety and delivering to customer specifications. By receiving our third serial production commitment, it cements the value proposition and long-term potential we see in the hydrogen space."

Hydrogen is a clean and safe energy carrier that can be used as fuel for power in a wide range of applications, and can be easily stored on a large scale. The life cycling properties of all-composite pressure cylinders, with plastic liners and carbon fiber structure, make them more suitable for storage of hydrogen than metal lined alternatives.

Source: Hexagon Composites

China's Haiyuan to build a carbon fiber base for ultra-light NEVs in Zhejiang

Chinese company Haiyuan New Material Technology will build a carbon fiber production base in eastern Zhejiang province to develop ultra-light materials for new energy vehicles.Chinese company Haiyuan New Material Technology will build a carbon fiber production base in eastern Zhejiang province to develop ultra-light materials for new energy vehicles.

Regarding the new plant, Haiyuan signed a framework agreement with Zhejiang Sea Port, an investment firm set up by Zhejiang province's government, Shenzhen-listed Fujianese chemical firm's parent Haiyuan Composites Technology said in a statement to its stockholders. The company said that Haiyuan has designed a production line for ultra-light car bodies while securing intellectual property rights.
The investment firm will also establish a car industry fund for new material development, to which Haiyuan will invest in. The fund will have an initial investment of CNY2 billion (USD290 million) and later it will acquire a stake in the vehicle parts firm.
Both parties will promote the use of carbon fiber materials in cars to expand from Zhejiang to the whole country, while helping Haiyuan to become the leader in the sector, the statement added.

 

 

More information: 

www.haiyuan-group.com

Cost-effective Way to Turn Food Waste into PHAs - U of T Scarborough

At U of T Scarborough, researchers have found a way to produce high quality PHAs using food waste in a cost-effective way – while also mitigating the effects of plastic pollution. PHAs have many benefits over other forms of bio-plastics.

Three-step Process to Produce PHAs

Developing materials from food waste

Process

• Genecis uses a three-step process to produce its PHAs, explains Michael Williamson, the company’s head of mechanical engineering and U of T engineering grad.
• First, they use a mixture of anaerobic (without oxygen) bacteria that breaks down the food waste into volatile fatty acids, similar to how food is broken down in our stomachs. 
• Next, the fatty acids are added to a mixed culture of aerobic (with oxygen) bacteria that are specially selected to produce PHAs in their cells.
• Finally, they use an extraction process to break open the cells, collect and purify the plastic.

It’s no wonder that passion led Yu to team up with a talented group of scientists and engineers — many of whom are U of T students or alum — to form Genecis. The company uses recent advancements in biotechnology, microbial engineering and machine learning to take food destined for landfill and convert it into high quality, fully biodegradable plastics.

“More than $1 trillion worth of food is wasted globally every year. What we’re able to do is take this waste and turn it into something of higher value.”

Food Waste - Significant Environmental Issue

Food waste is a significant environmental issue in North America, explains Yu. In the United States roughly 55 million tons of food is thrown away annually. Once that food hits landfill it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In fact, it’s estimated that 34 per cent of methane emissions in the U.S. alone are caused by food waste.

“We feel that by using synthetic biology create high quality products out of this organic waste in a cost-effective way – while also mitigating the effects of plastic pollution – is really the way of the future,” she says.

Though only in her early 20s, this isn’t Yu’s first foray into entrepreneurship. She has more than six years’ experience, first at a start-up software company as an undergrad before moving to another start-up that converted restaurant food waste into biogas.

It was there that she met several talented engineers, learned about the microbiology of converting discarded food into other materials, and discovered a valuable lesson in the economics of re-using food waste.

“Converting food waste into biogas is not only a time-consuming process, the end product is fairly low value,” she says.

It was shortly after this experience that she connected with a fellow environmental science student in The Hub, U of T Scarborough’s entrepreneurial incubator, to figure out what else could be made from food waste.

“We looked at different types of bio-rubbers and bio-chemicals before landing on PHAs. We felt it had the biggest market potential.”

A Reusable, Biodegradable Form of Plastic

PHAs, or polyhydroxyalkanoates, are a type of polymer produced in nature by bacteria that have many benefits over other forms of bio-plastics. For one, it can be a thermoplastic, meaning it can be easily molded and remolded into different products. Another benefit is that, unlike many other forms of bio-plastics, it won’t ruin the recycling process.

“Many people throw bio-plastics into the recycling bin rather than the compost, but if it’s not a thermoplastic, it can’t be remolded,” says Yu.

“This disrupts the physical properties of new recycled products — they will end up falling apart.”

PHAs won’t cause this problem if it accidentally ends up in recycling bins, which makes it much easier for waste management companies to handle.

But what really sold Yu on PHAs is the fact that it’s fully biodegradable. PHAs degrade within one year in a terrestrial environment, and fewer than 10 years in marine environments. Meanwhile, synthetic plastics can take hundreds of years to degrade in similar environments.

Given its superior physical properties and the process it takes to create, Yu says Genecis’s PHAs are best suited for higher-end products like toys, flexible packaging, 3D-printing filament and medical applications including surgical staples, sutures and stints.

 “The PHAs we create can be used to make pretty much anything, but it makes the most economic sense to use it in higher-quality, multi-use products,” she says.
While PHAs have been in the market for the past two decades, most come directly from corn and sugarcane crops. Yu explains that the process Genecis uses to create its PHAs is much cheaper because they avoid the expenses required to acquire their feedstock.
The process takes less than seven days from getting the food waste to having the purified plastic — making biogas, on the other hand, takes an average of 21 days. When the company opens its demonstration plant later next year, it will be able to convert three tons of organic waste into PHAs weekly.
While the process used by Genecis works for pretty much all types of food, some foods like simple carbs and proteins can be more efficiently converted, says Yu.
The company currently has two locations — their main lab in U of T’s Banting and Best Building, in the heart of Toronto’s Discovery District, and the other in the Environmental Science and Chemistry Building at U of T Scarborough, which is responsible for research and development.

U of T Start-up

In their downtown lab they work with pilot-scale bioreactors, and are continuing to scale up their operations with an industry partner to a demonstration plant by the end of next year. Meanwhile, their facility at UTSC houses smaller bioreactors that are used to help optimize their production process.

“We’re fine-tuning things to figure out the best conditions to operate our bacteria cultures,” says Vani Sankar, Genecis’s head of biotechnology and a postdoc at U of T Scarborough. “This includes what combinations of temperature, pH and amount of food will give us the best yield.”

In less than two years of operation, Genecis has already won more than $330,000 in prize money from start-up competitions. Yu says the support, guidance and mentorship they’ve received from the Hub, the Creative Destruction Lab, and the Hatchery, a start-up accelerator at U of T Engineering, has also been instrumental in their growth.

“I can’t say enough about the support I received from the Hub. It’s a great place to go for any students interested in starting their own company. I formed great partnerships with other students there and the mentorship I received was second to none,” Yu says. As Genecis aims to ramp up production, Yu says this support and the lessons learned from her work in other start-ups will be invaluable.

“Our goal is to create the highest value from organic waste,” says Yu, adding they’ve cultured and isolated hundreds of species of bacteria that currently don’t exist in databases.

“Soon we will be able to synthesize specialty chemicals and other materials from organic waste, all at a lower cost than traditional production methods using synthetic biology,” she says.

Those specialty chemicals can be used in a range of products including those found in cosmetics and the health and wellness industry, says Yu. “It’s a really exciting time for us.”

Source: U of T Scarborough