Bp plc (London) unveiled plans to invest up to £50 million (around $60 million) in a new, state-of-the-art electric vehicle (EV) battery testing center and analytical laboratory in the UK. bp has previously announced its intention to invest up to…
The Mitsubishi Chemical Group（MCG）has decided to increase its annual production capacity of SoarnoL ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) resin by 21,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) in the U.K. at MCG’s site in Saltend. Once construction begins in April 2023,…
Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. (Milan, Italy) announced that its subsidiary NextChem has been awarded a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) contract by a market leader in plastics and chemicals for an advanced mechanical recycling plant of municipal plastic waste in Europe. The aim of the project…
Indorama Ventures Ltd. (IVL; Bangkok, Thailand) has entered into a non-binding agreement with Capchem Technology USA Inc. (Capchem USA) to study the opportunity to build and operate a world-class lithium-ion battery (LIB) solvents plant at one of IVL's petrochemical facilities…
Kensing, LLC (Kankakee, Ill.; www.kensingsolutions.com), a leading manufacturer of natural vitamin E, plant sterols, specialty esters and high-purity anionic surfactants, and a portfolio company of One Rock Capital Partners, LLC, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement…
Plant Watch Johnson Matthey to build U.K. gigafactory for H2 fuel-cell components July 18, 2022 — Johnson Matthey plc (JM; London; www.matthey.com) is building an£80-million gigafactory at its existing site in Royston, U.K. to manufacture hydrogen fuel-cell components. The gigafactory…
Last month, operation began at Polar Night Energy Oy’s (Tampere, Finland; www.polarnightenergy.com) first commercial sand-based thermal-energy storage system. The thermal storage system, which is located at the Vatajankoski power plant, is now producing low-emission district heating to the city of…
Cyclopropane-functionalized hydrocarbons can be excellent fuels because of their high energy densities, but organic synthesis of such fuels is difficult. In work recently published in the journal Joule, a research team led by Jay Keasling at the Joint Bioenergy Institute…
In an advancement toward circularity for commodity plastics, researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) have developed a method for upcycling the commodity thermoplastic acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) into an ABS-vitrimer material that can be…
Transparent polymer film started with an accident . . . and spurred a packaging revolution One night in Paris, in 1900, Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger was enjoying dinner in a restaurant when he noticed that a fellow patron had spilled…