OQ Chemicals (formerly Oxea) has completed a recent expansion project at its Oberhausen, Germany site resulting in a 30% increase in its global production capacity for isononanoic acid. The project completed at the site is part of the previously announced…
Firmenich (Geneva, Switzerland) announced the opening of its new biotechnology and naturals pilot plant and laboratory in Geneva. Benefiting from the latest digital technology, the facility opens a new era for the development of ingredients and clean label solutions by…
On September 30, 2020, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) closed the divestiture of its Construction Chemicals business to an affiliate of Lone Star, a global private equity firm. The purchase price on a cash and debt-free basis is €3.17 billion. The…
The Gazpromneft Omsk Oil Refinery (Omsk) in Siberia, Russia has significantly lowered its air emissions using wet-scrubbing technology licensed by DuPont Clean Technologies (DuPont). With an installed capacity of 22.23 million tons of oil per year, the Omsk Oil Refinery…
PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Tbk (Jakarta, Indonesia) is starting up a new Enclosed Ground Flare (EGF), a smokeless flare technology, at its petrochemical complex in Cilegon, Banten, Indonesia. The total investment for the EGF was around $14 million. In construction…
Metsä Fibre Oy, part of the Metsä Group, and AFRY AB (Stockholm, Sweden) have entered into a preliminary agreement for the engineering, project management and site services for the implementation of a new chlorine dioxide plant at the Kemi bioproduct…
Nippon Shokubai Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) has begun the facility design for an enhanced production plant for the electrolyte lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl) imide (LiFSI; marketed under the name Ionel) for lithium-ion batteries. The company has assembled the Ionel Construction Team in order…
Ethylene dichloride Recently, Chemetry (Moss Landing, Calif.; www.chemetrycorp.com) and Braskem (Sao Paulo, Brazil; www.braskem.com) announced their intent to construct and operate a demonstration plant using Chemetry’s eShuttle technology for the production of ethylene dichloride (EDC) in Brazil. The initial focus…
This month, a demonstration project to generate power from fuel cells running on biogas has begun at Asahi Breweries’ Ibaraki Brewery. Coordinated by Asahi Quality & Innovations, Ltd., an independent research subsidiary of Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahigroup-holdings.com),…
Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU; Singapore; www.ntu.edu.sg), led by professor Madhavi Srinivasan, have developed a method of using orange peel waste to extract precious metals from spent lithium-ion batteries and to make batteries from those recovered metals, creating minimal…