Skip to main content

Albemarle plans lithium park

19th December 2022

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Albemarle has acquired a location in Charlotte, North Carolina, where it will invest at least $180 million to establish the Albemarle Technology Park (ATP), aided by a $13 million incentive package from the state of North Carolina. The company expects to move in by early 2025 and complete of the campus by late 2026.

The ATP is planned to be “a world-class facility designed for novel materials research, advanced process development and acceleration of next-generation lithium products to market”, co-located in close proximity to many customers in the electric vehicle industry. At least 200 jobs should be created.

In the same field, Albemarle has recently acquired Guangxi Tianyuan New Energy Materials in China’s Guangxi province for approximately $200 million, via its UK subsidiary. This includes a lithium conversion plant with a designed conversion capacity of up to 25,000 tonnes/year that can produce battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.

Albemarle has also recently announced planned investments of up to $540 million to expand and modernise two bromine facilities in Magnolia, Arkansas, where it currently has more than 400 employees and 200 contractors. These investments have already begun and will continue through 2027.

The two sites make brominated products for use in flame retardants and speciality products for other industries, including chemical synthesis, oil and gas well drilling and completion fluids, mercury control, paper and water purification, beef and poultry processing, and green energy. The projects are expected to add about 15% to the total employment levels, as well as supporting 250 jobs during construction.

Feature article – Saltigo rides out the cycle

Market and sustainability trends are positive drivers for Saltigo, despite the agro downturn. Andrew Warmington met up with the new CEO at Chemspec Europe

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

UPL to split out specialities

Indian agrochemicals giant UPL has announced plans to transfer its speciality chemicals business, including agrochemical active ingredient (AI) manufacturing to its wholly owned subsidiary UPL Spec

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Nippon Shokubai opens Indonesian plant

Japan’s Nippon Shokubai has officially opened a 100,000 tonnes/year acrylic acid (AA) plant that was built at a cost of about $200 million at Cilegon, Banten, Indonesia.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

CABB to invest at Finnish agro site

The CABB Group has said that it will invest over €50 million by 2025 to expand facilities at its agrochemical manufacturing site in Kokkola, Finland.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

AI for SAPs

Together with Algo Artis, Japan’s Nippon Shokubai has developed an algorithm-based means for the production planning of superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) based on acrylic acid, and has started operati

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Halozyme has dropped its approach to buy Evotec

Halozyme abandons Evotec bid

San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company Halozyme Therapeutics has withdrawn the offer it made for Evotec after a week after the latter declined to engage with it.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

adcs

Three invest further into ADCs

Three CDMOs have separately announced expansions in their antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) manufacturing capabilities and capacity on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Cambrex exits drug product

CDMO Cambrex has sold its Drug Product business unit to Noramco. Terms were not disclosed.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Siegfried breaks ground on R&D centre

Siegfried has broke ground for its new global R&D centre for drug substances at its site in Evionnaz, Switzerland.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

First waste-based biosurfactants

Belgian start-up AmphiStar has launched what it claims are the first fully upcycled biobased surfactants under the trade names AmphiCare and AmphiClean.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Aether to supply Seqens

Indian firm Aether Industries has entered into a manufacturing agreement with Chemoxy International, a UK-based subsidiary of Seqens.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

New model for biocatalysts

BASF, the Austrian Research Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB) and the University of Graz in Austria have co-developed a computer-assisted regression model to improve enzyme performance and

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

CBE JU funds 31 more projects

The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU), a €2 billion partnership between the EU and the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) that funds projects advancing competitive circular bi

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Investment in Tanasote plant

Octowood, a part of the Sweden’s Rundvirke Industrier Group, has invested in a new treatment plant using Arxada’s wood preservative, Tanasote.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Rhamnolipid milestone reached

Evonik has manufactured the first product from its industrial-scale biosurfactants facility at Slovenská Lupca in Slovakia.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Sudarshan to buy Heubach

India’s Sudarshan Chemical Industries (SCIL) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Heubach Group in a move that it said would “create a global pigment company, combining SCIL’s ope

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Lanxess to continue pigment production

Lanxess has reversed a decision to sell the chromium oxide pigments business at the Krefeld-Uerdingen site in Germany, preserving 50 jobs there.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Alliance in natural fragrances

Sensegen, a US-based specialist in biotech-enabled fragrances, notably a new class of natural musk raw materials, has announced a strategic collaboration with Japan’s Takasago, a large player in th

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Croda breaks ground in China

Croda International has broken ground for a low-carbon, multi-purpose production facility on a greenfield site in Guangzhou. This triples its manufacturing capacity for fragrances and establis

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

CCT collaboration for Givaudan

Flavours and fragrances giant Givaudan has agreed a research collaboration for the development of sustainable fragrance ingredients from renewable carbon, with US-based LanzaTech, which describes i

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Kao boosts jasmine fragrance

Japan's Kao Corporation is to double capacity for the synthetic fragrance methyl dihydrojasmonate (MDJ) at its site in Olesa, Spain, by adding a second production facility.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Merck KGaA “in a strong strategic position”

At its latest Capital Markets Day, Merck KGaA said that it is “in a strong strategic position” to profit from medium-term growth opportunities in all three of its business sectors after a transitio

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Suez joins Global Impact Coalition

Suez, which describes itself as “a global leader in circular solutions for water and waste”, has joined the Global Impact Coalition (GIC).

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington

Chemours opens battery lab

Chemours has opened Chemours Battery Innovation Centre (CBIC) at the Chemours Discovery Hub in Newark, Delaware.

Submitted by:

Andrew Warmington