Business Roundup

Air Products & Chemicals has acquired the advanced adsorption technology assets of Canada’s Xebec Adsorption for $8.6 million. The purchase includes more than 100 patents, a technology center, and a testing facility in British Columbia. Xebec has licensed back the right to sell purification systems for certain gases.

FRX Polymers has signed a lease agreement with Bayer that will allow it to build its first commercial plant, at Bayer’s site in Antwerp, Belgium. Set to open in late 2013, the plant will manufacture FRX’s inherently flame retardant polyphosphonate plastics.

Invista will build a nylon salt facility at its plant in Rozenburg, the Netherlands. To open by the end of the year, the facility will provide raw material for production of nylon 6,6 at the Rozenburg site, Invista says.

Georgia Gulf will collaborate with Galata Chemicals to develop a line of flexible polyvinyl chloride compounds containing a plasticizer made from soybean oil. The Galata plasticizer is free of phthalates and heavy metals but doesn’t cost more than petroleum-based products, the firms say.

Chevron Phillips Chemical will expand the natural gas liquids fractionator at its Sweeny Plant in Old Ocean, Texas. To be completed by February 2013, the project will increase capacity by 19% and allow Chevron Phillips to process more raw natural gas liquids from regional shale formations, the company says.

W.R. Grace and Dow Chemical have joined to develop new catalysts for polypropylene production. The catalysts will make use of Dow’s non-phthalate internal donor technology and Grace’s catalyst expertise. Grace expects to begin commercial production later this year.

AB Sciex has started an academic partnership program to assist scientists working in proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics. The instrumentation firm says the program for- malizes and expands its approach to academic collaborations, which have led to new reagents and spectroscopic techniques.

Roche has increased its offer for the gene-sequencing specialist Illumina to $51.00 per share, or about $6.5 billion, from $44.50 per share. Illumina rejected the previous bid, made in January, as too low.

Abbott Laboratories has chosen AbbVie as the name for its new research-based pharmaceutical company, expected to launch by the end of this year. Last October, Abbott unveiled plans to split into two publicly traded companies, one focused on medical products and the other on pharmaceuticals.