IN BRIEF
ICL in battery deal ICL has formed a 80-20 joint venture agreement with China ’ s Shenzhen Dynanonic to produce lithium iron phosphate for cathode active materials on a ten-hectare site where it previously produced potash at Sallent , Spain . The initial investment is about € 285 million . The site has an option for further expansion and is accessible by rail to the Port of Barcelona , just under 100 km away .
Minakem route approved The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare ( EDQM ) has approved a Certificate of Suitability for the second-generation process Minakem developed for the breast cancer API Fulvestrant at its HPAPI facility in Belgium . Ecovamed has estimated that this has a carbon footprint of 3.4 tonnes of CO 2 eq ./ kg compared to the original , highly solvent-intensive process .
Barentz buys NCD Netherlands-based distributor Barent has acquired NCD Ingredients , which distributes speciality personal care and home care ingredients in Germany , Austria and Switzerland . The firm said that this “ strengthens its commercial sales organisation and deepens its reach and market penetration in this key region ”, via complementary product portfolios .
Ingevity mulls divestment Ingevity is “ exploring strategic alternatives ” for its Industrial Specialties product line in order to strengthen the Performance Chemicals segment further . This includes all of the pine-based chemistries for paper , rubber , adhesives , oilfield , lubricants and industrial intermediates , and the crude tall oil refinery at North Charleston , South Carolina , but not the Road Technologies product line or certain lignin-based products .
Deals in membrane materials
Syensqo and Arkema have signed separate deals , with Ardent Process Technologies and Japanese start-up OOYOO respectively , in which they will supply speciality materials for use in membranes for carbon capture . These have received growing attention as part of the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also to recover and recycle
CO 2 for use in industrial chemicals .
Syensqo ’ s strategic partnership agreement with Ardent formalises over two years of collaboration in the latter ’ s ‘ point source ’ carbon capture and olefin-paraffin separation technologies . These are used to capture CO 2 emissions
Wacker starts up speciality silicones plants
from the production source , such as industrial facilities , power plants and other large emitters . Syensqo has also made a direct investment in Ardent ’ s Series A funding round .
Meanwhile , under a new memorandum of understanding , Arkema will develop high performance polymers for OOYOO ’ s proprietary separation membrane . This is mainly focused on its Pebax polyether block amide elastomers , which are designed with tailored molecular channelling technology “ leading to high selectivity , chemical stability and excellent mechanical strength ”.
Wacker Chemie has started up two new production facilities for speciality silicones at Tsukuba , Japan , and Jincheon , South Korea . The investment was said to be in the double-digit million euros range .
At Tsukuba , a new production line has come onstream for siliconebased thermal interface materials , which are basically silicone elastomers modified with various additives and fillers during compounding to render them thermally conductive . They are mainly used as heat-dissipating gap fillers for cooling power electronics and traction batteries .
Jincheon , as part of the Wacker Asahikasei Silicone joint venture , has seen an expansion in speciality silicones for construction . The site also makes speciality silicones , liquid silicone rubbers and silicone elastomers for the automotive and electrical industries throughout Asia , which currently accounts for 40 % of the German silicone giant ’ s sales .
14 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981