Business Roundup

Axiall and Lotte Chemicalhave finalized a joint venture to build an ethylene cracker in Louisiana. The plant, which still requires board approvals, would have 1 million metric tons of annual capacity. Lotte, a South Korean firm, would build an adjacent ethylene glycol plant.

Evonik and AkzoNobel are moving ahead with a previously announced plan to build a potassium hydroxide and chlorine plant in Ibbenbüren, Germany. The new plant, based on membrane chlor-alkali technology, will replace an older mercury-based plant.

Sid Richardson Carbon & Energy plans to build a carbon black plant in Mexico. The company says new North American capacity for the rubber additive will soon be needed and hopes to have the plant running in 2017.

Wacker Chemie raised $426 million from an initial public offering of 42.2% of the shares in Siltronic, its silicon wafer subsidiary. Siltronic is the world’s third-largest producer of hyperpure silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry.

Zeon will boost its capacity for cyclo-olefin polymers by 20% to 37,000 metric tons per year at its site in Mizushima, Japan. The materials are used in the manufacturing of printers, TVs, smartphones, cameras, and medical instruments.

Pixelligent has raised $3.4 million in new funding, bringing its total equity funding to date to more than $26 million. The Baltimore-based firm develops transparent zirconia nanocrystals for lighting and optical coatings. It says the funds will support new capacity.

United Chemical Technologies, a Bristol, Pa.-based provider of chromatography separation media and reagents, is opening its first European manufacturing operation, in Wexford, Ireland. The firm expects to employ 17 people at the site.

Agilent Technologies and Waters Corp. have agreed to share information on their instrument control products in order to support customers who own software and instruments from both companies. The new agreement replaces an earlier one that covered chromatography tools.

Albany Molecular Research Inc. and Perkin­Elmer will collaborate at AMRI’s new drug discovery center at the Buffalo Medical Innovation & Commercialization Hub in Buffalo, N.Y. Hub scientists can draw on AMRI’s chemistry and ­biology expertise along with PerkinElmer’s information technology and instruments, the partners say.