Neste aims to scale up processing capabilities for liquefied waste plastic at its Porvoo refinery in Finland. The development will enable the company to meet its goal of processing over 1 million tons of waste plastic annually.

Whitfield Chemical is a distributor of coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers as well as rubber & plastic additives in the UK. With this takeover, Azelis plans to strengthen its position in industrial chemicals in the country.

Akzonobel has partnered with Microsoft to explore how quantum computing could accelerate the development of high-performance and more sustainable paints and coatings. With this collaboration, both the firms will co-develop a virtual laboratory which will use quantum computing and other Microsoft Azure cloud services to conduct experiments.

The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) has stated that the industry's expectations from the beginning of the year for the business outlook in 2022 have been overturned due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It further mentions that 70 % of companies are facing major problems in their business with the explosion of energy prices and also warned that an import ban on Russian natural gas would lead to massive consequences for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.

Lyondell Basell will be ceasing operations at its Houston Refinery as it plans to exit its refining business by 2023. The move is in line with the company’s decarbonization strategy and will help the firm to use the site for its future sustainable goals.

A consortium comprising Johnson Matthey, Bekaert and TNO aims to improve green hydrogen production by optimizing the most important components of the electrolyzer. The move is expected to support the development of next-generation electrolyzers which will lead to lower electricity consumption and assist in cheaper hydrogen production.

The advanced CA900 Titration Analyzer from Electro-Chemical Devices automates the alkalinity measurement process in water. The analyzer proves beneficial across diverse sectors such as drinking water, wastewater, food, beverage, and pharmaceuticals.

In a field test, a chemical plant in Japan ran autonomously for 35 days with the assistance of an artificial intelligence (AI) solution developed by Yokogawa and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. The next-generation control technology is capable of taking into account numerous factors such as quality, yield, energy saving, and sudden disturbances.

Huajin Aramco Petrochemical Company, a joint venture company between Aramco, North Huajin Chemical Industries Group Corporation and Panjin Xincheng Industrial Group, have plans to develop a major liquids-to-chemicals complex in China. For this project, Aramco intends to supply up to 210,000 barrels per day of crude oil feedstock to the complex.

In the production of chemical compounds, the success of each individual reaction depends on numerous parameters. It is not always possible, even for experienced chemists, to predict whether a reaction will take place and how well it will work. In order to remedy this situation, chemists and computer scientists from the University of Münster have now developed a tool based on artificial intelligence. The study has been published in the journal ‘Chem’.