The Japanese company Itochu will use blue ammonia to produce fertilizers. Fertiglobe, a joint venture firm between OCI and Adnoc, produces blue ammonia at its Fertil plant in the Ruwais Industrial Complex in Abu Dhabi, UAE and the cargo is the first to be sold from the UAE to a Japanese customer.

With an aim to meet the growing demand of emission control catalysts, Clariant Catalysts has increased production volume at its Heufeld plant in Germany by 100 %. The facility produces Envicat emission control catalysts, which are capable of eliminating up to 99% of harmful substances from industrial off-gases.

The ‘MACBETH’ project aims to develop technologies that make important large-scale reactions, such as hydroformylation, significantly more energy efficient. Claimed to be the largest EU-funded research project coordinated by Specialty Chemical Company Evonik, the project has the potential to revolutionize large-scale reactions in the chemical industry.

Hyflexfuel is an EU funded research project which has produced biocrude from various biomasses. The Aarhus University utilized the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) process at its pilot plant in Denmark to produce the biocrude.

Neste, Mitsui Chemicals and Toyota Tsusho have collaborated to start first production of renewable plastics from 100 % bio-based hydrocarbons in Japan. Mitsui Chemicals will use 100 % bio-based hydrocarbons produced by Neste to replace a part of the fossil feedstock at its crackers within Osaka Works in Japan.

Coperion is supplying an extrusion system to Ghent University in Belgium for comprehensive research and development tasks in chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste. The company designed this laboratory system, built upon a ZSK 18 Megalab twin screw extruder, especially for chemical recycling of post-consumer waste within a throughput range of 1-10 kg per hour.

Shell has plans to sell its interest in Deer Park Refining Ltd Partnership, a 50:50 joint venture firm between Shell and Pemex, to Pemex for 596 million dollars. Once the deal is finalized, Pemex will solely own the company.

In line with India’s BS-VI emission standards and an aim to increase crude oil conversion, Numaligarh Refinery Ltd has chosen UOP’s Unionfining technology for producing cleaner-burning diesel fuels. The technology will be implemented at the Numaligarh Refinery Expansion Project (NREP) located in Assam.

Orlen Unipetrol has recently commissioned a pyrolytic testing unit for processing waste-plastics at its chemical plant in Litvínov, Czech Republic. With this move, the company intends to expand the conventional fuel and plastic production from fossil fuels with new sources that will lead to the decarbonization of the country.

The Maag Group has supplied its latest state of the art x6 class melt pump technology for the first fully integrated sugar-to-PLA (polylactic acid) plant in China. The plant is based on a Sulzer technology and key equipment for converting lactide into PLA.