Business Roundup

Mitsui Chemicals plans to close its polyethylene terephthalate plant in Yamaguchi, Japan, in October 2024. The company says the plant, which has 145,000 metric tons per year of capacity, has to close because of cheap imports from overseas.

Röhm will soon launch Polyvantis, a company that will combine its acrylic products business with the polycarbonate forms business of Sabic and is expected to have annual sales of about $700 million. Röhm announced the purchase of the Sabic unit in December and expects to complete the deal next year.

LyondellBasell Industries is moving forward with plans to build a plant in Wesseling, Germany, that will use its catalytic pyrolysis process to break down waste plastics. The plant will have a capacity to process about 50,000 metric tons of plastics per year and is expected to start up in 2025.

Northvolt has unveiled a sodium-ion battery that uses a Prussian white–based cathode and a hard carbon anode. The battery was developed in partnership with the start-up Altris.

Evonik Industries will spend $7.9 million to build an ultra-high-purity colloidal silica plant at its site in Weston, Michigan. The firm says the plant will be the first of its kind in North America. It will make silica for the chemical mechanical planarization process used in semiconductor fabrication.

Novozymes will divest part of its lactase business to satisfy European regulators ahead of a planned merger with rival Chr. Hansen. The firms say they already have a buyer but did not disclose that party’s name.

OCI Global is supplying Röhm with bioammonia for use in the production of methyl methacrylate, an acrylic resin precursor. OCI produces the ammonia from methane collected from waste and residues of biological origin.

Charles River Laboratories and Aitia, a developer of artificial intelligence applications, have signed an agreement giving Aitia access to Logica, Charles River’s AI-powered drug discovery platform. Aitia will deploy Logica across a portfolio of drug targets to discover candidates for neurological indications and cancer.