Business Roundup

Johnson Matthey has agreed to sell its diagnostics services business to Sullivan Street Partners and Souter Investments for $69 million. The business, which provides equipment for diagnosing problems in oil and gas production, has annual sales of about $72 million.

LyondellBasell Industries is buying the 50% of the plastics recycler Quality Circular Polymers (QCP) that it doesn’t already own from the waste management firm Veolia. QCP operates mechanical recycling plants in Belgium and the Netherlands.

PureCycle Technologies has achieved mechanical completion of its plant in Ironton, Ohio, which will use a solvent-based process to purify postconsumer polypropylene for recycling. When operating, the plant will be able to produce nearly 50,000 metric tons of recycled polypropylene per year.

Nouryon will expand capacity at its facility in Ningbo, China, for the organic peroxides Perkadox 14 and Trigonox 101. The firm says annual capacity for each polymer additive will double, to 6,000 metric tons.

Asahi Kasei and Microwave Chemical will work together to develop a chemical recycling process for nylon 6,6. The process will use microwaves to depolymerize the material into hexamethylenediamine and adipic acid.

Air Liquide will provide its Cryocap cryogenic technology for a carbon dioxide capture project at a Holcim cement facility in Belgium. Most CO₂ capture systems are based on amine solvents.

Octet Scientific has raised $1 million in seed funding to develop electrolyte additives for zinc-based batteries, a cheaper alternative to lithium-​ion batteries. Octet previously received $1.5 million in grants from the US National Science Foundation.

Origin by Ocean has raised $8.3 million in seed funding to build an industrial-scale chemical facility that uses algae as a feedstock. The Finnish company uses both farmed algae and invasive algae from coastal waters.

Convergent Therapeutics has raised $90 million in series A financing to develop cancer-fighting radioantibodies. The firm’s technology is based on the research of Cornell University oncologist Neil Bander. Its lead asset is a monoclonal antibody conjugated to actinium-225.