Business Roundup

Arkema is spending about $50 million to increase organic acid capacity in Changshu, China. The project will increase output by 2.5 times and is expected to start up in 2025.

Baystar, a joint venture between petrochemical makers Borealis and TotalEnergies, has started a polyethylene plant in Pasadena, Texas, that has capacity of 625,000 metric tons per year. The plant is the first in North America to use Borealis’s Borstar technology.

Toray Industries is expanding capacity for carbon fiber at its plant at Abidos, France, by 20%, to 6,000 metric tons per year. The new capacity in medium- and high-modulus fibers will come on line in 2025.

Occidental Petroleum subsidiary 1PointFive and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company have agreed to an engineering study for a direct-air-capture facility in the United Arab Emirates. The plant will have the capacity to capture 1 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for storage in local saline reservoirs.

Odfjell, Alma Clean Power, and DNV plan to install a solid oxide fuel cell system on a ship by the end of 2024. Solid oxide fuel cells are fuel flexible and can use ammonia, methanol, liquefied natural gas, and hydrogen.

Dow, using technology from LanzaTech Global, is introducing a biodegradable surfactant for cleaning products made from industrial carbon emissions. The process converts the emissions into ethanol, which is turned into ethylene oxide, a raw material for the surfactant.

DSM Semichem, a joint venture that includes the South Korean chemical maker Dongjin Semichem, is building an electronics-grade sulfuric acid plant in Plainview, Texas. The facility is intended to serve semiconductor makers in the US.

Biosynth, a Swiss research chemicals supplier, has acquired Pepceuticals, a UK-based producer of synthetic peptides. Biosynth purchased another UK firm, Cambridge Research Biochemicals, in May.