Business Roundup

Clariant will expand its ethoxylation facility in Pasadena, Texas, by about 30% to 125,000 metric tons per year by 2015. Combined with an expansion completed in 2012, investment at the site will total more than $70 million over five years, the Swiss firm says.

Orion Engineered Carbons will end carbon black production by the end of the year at its facility in Sines, Portugal. The company says it will invest in other, more efficient European plants.

Kemira has agreed to sell its Brazilian iron and aluminum coagulant business to the local firm Bauminas. The deal includes three coagulant plants in Brazil. The businesses being sold generate $68 million in annual revenues.

SABIC Innovative Plastics is installing a cogeneration plant at its Mount Vernon, Ind., facility, its largest complex in the U.S. The company says the cogen plant will save it money over the long run and that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will be the equivalent of taking 110,000 cars off the road.

UL, a safety inspection and validation firm, has acquired The Wercs, a supplier of supply-chain management software for the chemical industry. The acquisition strengthens UL’s supply-chain services with software that automates procedures for handling, storing, and disposing of chemicals.

BASF and the Petroleum Institute of Abu Dhabi will jointly research the removal of aggressive sulfur compounds from acid gases created during oil refining. The approaches to be studied include membranes, which are already being used to remove hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, and adsorbents.

Transphorm, a California-based manufacturer of power conversion devices such as solar inverters, has acquired the gallium nitride power device business of Japan’s Fujitsu Semiconductor. Transphorm says its own gallium nitride modules reduce energy loss by up to 90% compared with traditional components.

Visterra, a developer of therapies to prevent and treat infectious diseases, has received $8.1 million in its latest round of financing, bringing total financing to $34 million. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is among the investors participating in the latest round.