Business Roundup

Balchem will spend $567 million to acquire SensoryEffects, a St. Louis-based provider of food and beverage ingredients with annual sales of about $260 million. Balchem says SensoryEffects will fit well with its expertise in encapsulated and choline-based ingredients for food and animal nutrition.

Synthos, a Polish synthetic rubber maker, plans to build an 80,000-metric-ton-per-year neodymium-catalyzed polybutadiene rubber plant in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The company is licensing technology from Michelin and will supply rubber to Michelin and Pirelli for tire production.

Chevron Phillips Chemical will increase capacity at its mercaptans facility in Tessenderlo, Belgium, by 40%. The firm anticipates growing demand for organosulfur compounds as chain transfer agents in the production of synthetic rubber.

Invista has started to build hexamethylene diamine and nylon 6,6 plants at Shanghai’s Chemical Industry Park. If Invista proceeds with the adiponitrile plant that it is now considering, total investment at the site will reach $1 billion, the firm says.

BASF and Japan’s Toda Kogyo are negotiating a joint venture that would combine their Japanese businesses in cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Majority-owned by BASF, the business would provide materials such as nickel cobalt aluminum oxide, lithium manganese oxide, and nickel cobalt manganese in Japan.

Amryis, a biobased chemical maker, and Japan’s Kuraray have extended for two years their partnership to develop resins and polymers from farnesene, an intermediate that Amyris makes from sugar. The partners have launched hydrogenated styrenic farnesene copolymers as well as a liquid rubber for the tire industry.

Cool Planet Energy Systems has raised $100 million in a fourth round of venture funding led by North Bridge Venture Partners and Concord Energy. In February, Cool Planet began construction on a 10 million-gal-per-year facility to make renewable fuel and gasoline blendstocks from woody biomass via pyrolysis.

Particle Sciences, a contract manufacturer focused on drug delivery, will work on a generic drug from Actavis. Particle Sciences will handle design, formulation, and supplies of pharma-grade drug materials. Actavis will have responsibility for clinical testing, regulatory filings, and marketing.