“Another main pillar of our strategy is to drive sustainability through chemistry from renewable sources. We already operate on two technological platforms: Proesa® starting from solid biomasses and Matrìca from vegetable oils.” Adriano Alfani, CEO Versalis – the chemical division of Italian oil company ENI, talks to Il Bioeconomista.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
“The bioeconomy offers great opportunities for the European chemical industry to create new products, diversify its raw material base and reduce its dependence on non-renewable resources”. To say it – in this long exclusive interview with Il Bioeconomista – is Daniele Ferrari, CEO Versalis, the Chemical Division of Italian oil giant ENI, and President CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council. Ferrari talks with us about the main challenges the European chemical industry is facing, the circular bioeconomy and the next steps of Versalis in the green chemistry field.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
M&G Chemicals announced that has entered into a Sino-foreign joint venture with Anhui Guozhen CO, Ltd. The new company – Anhui M&G Guozhen Green Refinery CO, Ltd – will employ Proesa technology licensed by Beta Renewables to convert 970,000-1,300,000 metric tons per year of agricultural residues into cellulosic ethanol, glycols and by-products such as lignin in Fuyang City (Anhui Province, PRC).
M&G Chemicals, among the three largest producers of PET resin for packaging applications in the world, announced last Monday its decision to construct a second-generation biorefinery in the region of Fuyang, Anhui Province of China, for the conversion of one million metric tons of biomass into bio-ethanol and bio-glycols.
The project is expected to be realized through a joint-venture with Chinese company Guozhen which will make available one million metric tons of straw biomass and use the lignin resulting as a by-product from the bio-refinery to feed a 45 MW cogeneration plant which will be constructed at the same time as the bio-refinery in the same site. M&G Chemicals will be majority partner of the biorefinery and minority partner of the power plant.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 