Business Roundup

Huntsman Corp. will pay $92.5 million to acquire the 50% it doesn’t own of the Sasol-Huntsman maleic anhydride joint venture in Moers, Germany. Huntsman intends to integrate the German plant into its global maleic anhydride business.

Indorama has agreed to acquire Sinterama, which makes polyester yarn for automotive interiors. Sinterama has plants in Brazil, China, Italy, and Bulgaria with a total yarn capacity of 30,000 metric tons per year.

BASF will build a second tert-butylamine plant in Nanjing, China. The German chemical maker expects to complete the project in 2022, increasing its global tert-butylamine capacity by more than 30%.

Evonik Industries and Thyssenkrupp have licensed their technology for making propylene oxide from hydrogen peroxide to Zibo Qixiang Tengda Chemical. The Chinese firm plans to build a plant in China’s Shandong Province.

3F Bio, a Scottish firm developing fermentation production of mycoprotein, has joined with International Flavors & Fragrances, Mosa Meat, and seven other partners to build a biorefinery that will produce the protein and ethanol from cereal crops. The project is backed by a $19 million grant from the European Commission.

Thirumalai Chemicals plans to build a US facility for the food ingredients malic and fumaric acid. The Indian firm says the plant will have a capacity of 30,000 metric tons per year. The site has not yet been determined.

X-Vax Technology, a start-up in Jupiter, Florida, has raised $56 million in series A financing to develop, produce, and test a vaccine for herpes, which doesn’t now exist. In preclinical studies, the experimental vaccine produces antibodies that kill herpes-infected cells.

Twist Bioscience’s synthetic DNA service says it can now build oligonucleotides of up to 300 bases, which it says is the longest continuous synthesis capability in the industry. Reaction inefficiencies that cause errors normally limit oligos to about 150 bases.