Novozymes, Danish biotech giant, today announced the acquisition of microbial research company Organobalance GmbH for an undisclosed amount. Germany-based Organobalance owns a large collection of microbial strains, some of which date back to the 1920s, and has strong capabilities in microbial screening and assay technology. It specializes in developing natural microbial solutions for customers and partners across a number of industries including food, feed, and animal health.
Arkema, the French company created in 2004 following the reorganization of Total’s Chemicals branch, continues to expand its specialty polyamides production capacities in China and the United States, in order to support its customers’ growth around the world, in particular in the sports, consumer electronics and automotive markets,
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has signed a three-year contract for the supply of sustainable biofuel in Los Angeles. This means that KLM will purchase sustainable biofuel for all its flights at this airport for a period of three years. The biofuel will be produced by the local biofuel refinery AltAir Fuels and supplied by SkyNRG. Los Angeles is the world’s second airport that has incorporated biofuel into its regular refuelling process. The airport in Oslo, Norway, was first to do so in March this year. KLM was also involved in that initiative.
LiqTech International, a US listed technology company headquartered in Denmark, which for the last 11 years has been at the leading edge in developing and marketing its own proprietary products to the environmental industry, entered into a Letter of Intent to supply a $1.8 million filtration system for a 100,000 tons per year bioethanol plant to be located in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. The Letter of intent is subject to execution of definitive documents and financing of the project from a Chinese Investment bank. The filtration system is based on the company´s ceramic membranes and its newly developed Reverse Osmosis systems.
Virent and Tesoro announced last Tuesday they have reached an agreement for Tesoro to become Virent’s new strategic owner. The acquisition will support the scale up and commercialization of Virent’s BioForming® technology for the production of low carbon bio-based fuels and chemicals. As a result of the acquisition, Virent will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesoro and remain in Madison, Wisconsin.
Neste and Ikea of Sweden yesterday announced partnership to deliver renewable, bio-based plastics. The two Scandinavian companies have joined forces to take leadership in renewable, bio-based materials, and invite other companies to join the initiative.
The partnership includes the production of plastics and other materials utilizing Neste’s renewable solutions in polymer production.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture selected the Safety Equipment Institute – a subsidiary of ASTM International – to manage the certification program that supports labeling thousands of products as “biobased.” The renewal of this five-year contract will mean that more and more people will be able to find and purchase products that are made and packaged using renewable materials.
Toyobo, one of Japan’s top makers of fibers and textiles, and Avantium, a Dutch scale-up renewable chemicals company that develops and commercializes a next generation biobased chemicals and bioplastic, yesterday announced their partnership on PEF polymerization and PEF films. The two companies have jointly developed thin films made from PEF, a 100% biobased plastic based on Avantium’s proprietary YXY technology for the production of FDCA.
IBN-One, a subsidiary of Global Bioenergies and Cristal Union, yesterday announced it has awarded the first engineering contract for its bio-isobutene plant to Technip and IPSB. Following a consultation process by IBN-One in spring 2016, the initial engineering work contract has been awarded to a consortium that includes Technip, a global leader in engineering for the energy, petrochemical and chemical industries, and IPSB, an engineering firm specialising in sugar and biotechnologies. This first front-end engineering design (FEED) phase will run for 12 months and precedes the detailed engineering studies for the plant’s construction.
Amyris, the U.S. industrial bioscience company, has won a three-year multi-million dollar contract from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to further the manufacturing of cellulose-derived farnesene for biofuels. The company led by John Melo, in cooperation with Renmatix and Total New Energies USA, will work to develop a manufacturing-ready process utilizing wood as the cellulosic feedstock to produce farnesene, a hydrocarbon building block used to manufacture a variety of products ranging from cosmetics to detergents, as well as base oils, lubricants, diesel and jet fuel.
