Shell Oil Company, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, has completed the sale of its interest in Deer Park Refining Limited Partnership, a 50-50 joint venture between Shell Oil Company and P.M.I. Norteamerica, S.A. De C.V. (a subsidiary of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex) for $596 million, a combination of cash and debt.

Ascend has plans to develop a new hexamethylene diamine and specialty chemicals plant in Lianyungang, China which will also be the company’s first chemical production facility and the largest investment the firm has made outside the USA. The plant will produce HMD as well as specialty chemicals which will help in the technological transformations of various industries such as e-mobility and automation in the region.

PeproTech will be integrated in Thermo Fisher's biosciences business and its recombinant proteins portfolio will complement Thermo Fisher's bioprocessing and cell culture technologies which will help the company to cater to the rapidly-growing market for cell and gene therapies.

India has entered into a collaboration with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to strengthen the country’s renewable energy in order to become a leading producer of green hydrogen. Under the terms of the contract, the two will assess the potential of green hydrogen as an enabler of the country’s transition and as a new source of national energy exports. India is also launching a National Green Hydrogen Mission that will help in the production, storage, distribution, and application technologies of green hydrogen.

The German chemical industry association 'Verband der Chemischen Industrie e.V.' (VCI) has reported that production in the German chemical pharmaceutical industry rose by 4.5 % compared to the previous year, and turnover increased by 15.5 % to approximately 247 billion dollars (220 billion euros) due to the significant increase in producer prices (+ 8.5 %). The VCI also predicts that production is expected to increase by 2 % and the turnover by 5 % to 260 billion dollars (231 billion euros) in 2022.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Eastman Board Chair and CEO Mark Costa announced Eastman’s plan to invest up to $1 billion in a material-to-material molecular recycling facility in France. This facility would use Eastman’s polyester renewal technology to recycle up to 160,000 metric tonnes annually of hard-to-recycle plastic waste that is currently being incinerated.

Clariant has announced a major climate campaign under which it will deliver its nitrous oxide- (N2O) removal catalysts i.e. its EnviCat N2O-S catalyst for free to 10 nitric acid producers across the globe. The catalyst is capable of removing up to 95 % of N2O generated as a by-product of nitric acid production and converting it into harmless gases such as oxygen and nitrogen.

Coperion has designed a compounding line as a complete turnkey solution for Lanxess. The line has helped the company to produce high-performance polyamide compounds at throughputs never achieved before. Built around the ZSK 92 Mc18 twin screw extruder and equipped with special features such as the ASC strand conveying system, the turnkey system ensured a high degree of automation which helped to deliver high output and maintain good product quality.

Lenzing Group and Duratex, a producer of industrialized wood panels, announced that they agreed on the terms and conditions to form a joint venture to investigate building the largest single line dissolving wood pulp (DWP) plant in the state of Minas Gerais, close to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The global plastic recycling market stood at 162.5 million tons in 2020 and is forecast to reach 263.08 million tons by 2030, growing at a healthy CAGR of 4.49 % until 2030, according to a report by Research and Markets. Chemical recycling is definitely one of the most popular processes in recent times which will aid the plastic recycling industry to transform into a greener and more sustainable circular economy. In this background, PROCESS Worldwide shares with you the top 5 chemical recycling solutions which have been in the news this year.