Business Roundup

Azoty Group has signed a contract with the engineering firm Thyssenkrupp Uhde for a new ammonium nitrate solution plant to be built in Tarnów, Poland. The plant will have capacity to produce 1,500 metric tons per day of solution and replaces an older, less efficient facility.

Covestro plans to build a pilot plant in Leverkusen, Germany, to test a chemical recycling process to break down waste polycarbonate. The company says it has had successful results in the laboratory.

Ravago, a plastics distributor and recycling firm based in Luxembourg, is buying a majority stake in the US plastics distributor M. Holland. The firms say combining will provide them with greater scale as the plastics industry evolves.

Nippon Shokubai and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries intend to collaborate on an ammonia-cracking system that would allow hydrogen to be extracted from ammonia. Nippon Shokubai will develop a catalyst system. Mitsubishi will lend its chemical plant and expertise in handling ammonia.

Evonik Industries will supply custom catalysts for a methyl methacrylate plant that Röhm is building in Bay City, Texas. The plant, to open in 2024, will use a new production technology that Evonik says is more resource efficient than other processes.

Actimed Therapeutics has raised an extra $6 million in an extension of its recent series A financing. The UK-based specialty pharma company will use the funds to get its lead compound for treating cancer related to muscle wasting into a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial.

CAS and the chemical synthesis planning firm Molecule.one will jointly develop computer-aided synthesis design technologies for drug discovery. CAS is a division of the American Chemical Society, which publishes C&EN.

Gulbrandsen has commissioned a plant in Dahej, India, that will produce stannous octoate and stannous neodecanoate catalysts for polyurethane foaming. The US firm opened an aluminum alkyl plant at the site in March.