Business Roundup

Viva Energy will buy LyondellBasell Industries’ polypropylene plant in Geelong, Australia. The plant, Australia’s only facility that makes polypropylene, is located within Viva’s Geelong refinery.

Nova Chemicals and the recycling firm Enerkem are advancing to the pilot stage their collaboration to gasify municipal waste. The companies hope to eventually produce ethylene, which Nova will use to make polyethylene.

Fujitsu is using artificial intelligence to help the Icelandic start-up Atmonia develop catalysts used to make ammonia. Atmonia says its process, which uses renewable energy, would emit less carbon than the existing Haber-Bosch ammonia production process.

Cemvita Factory is working with the engineering firm Fluor on biomining. Cemvita’s technology uses engineered microbes and enzymes to carry out industrial reactions—in this case the extraction of metals from low-grade ore and waste.

Sumitomo Chemical will test a recycling method for lithium-ion battery cathodes that avoids some energy-intensive oxidation and reduction steps. The project, funded by the Japanese government, will also explore an improved method for separating battery components.

Satellite Bio has emerged with more than $110 million in financing to advance its technology for programming cells and assembling them into implantable therapies. Satellite’s technology is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University.

Asahi Kasei will acquire Bionova Scientific, a US bioprocess services firm that helps companies developing antibody-based drugs. Asahi Kasei already sells filters and testing services to the bioprocess industry.

BenevolentAI, an artificial intelligence–based drug discovery firm, will work with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative on dengue. The goal is to repurpose existing therapies to fight the infectious disease.