Sona Dadhania, senior technology analyst at IDTechEx, shares some highlights from a new report

Brenntag has announced an agreement to acquire independent speciality chemical distributor of Chemgrit Group of Johannesburg, South Africa, in a deal that is expected to close in Q4. Shortly afterwards, it also opened operations at two new innovation and application centres for personal care in France and the UK.

Under a new deal, BASF is to produce cathode active materials (CAMs) from recycled metals from its site at Battle Creek, Michigan, for use in Li-ion battery cells produced by Nanotech Energy, a US specialist in graphene-based energy storage products.  The two will also partner with American Battery Technology (ABTC), a Li-ion battery recycling company in Nevada, and Toda Advanced Materials, an Ontario firm which produces CAM precursors (pCAMs) and metal hydroxide material, to establish a battery value chain for the North American consumer electronics and automotive industries.

A study by the independent Institute for Material Testing has confirmed an earlier report by the FILK Institute that biocides used in the preservation of leather intermediates do not migrate out of the finished leather articles, according to Lanxess, which commissioned it.

Orion is to spend €12.8 million to further develop and demonstrate a climate-neutral process for producing carbon black from renewable sources. Half of the total is being funded by the decarbonisation programme of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action, supported by the EU’s NextGenerationEU fund.

At their annual general assembly in Sitges, Spain, members of the European Association of Chemical Distributors (FECC) elected Lars Wallstein of IMCD as the new president of the association for 2023-2035. He had previously been vice-president since 2021.

Wallstein succeeds Neville Prior of the Cornelius Group, who had led the organisation for ten years. The rest of the FECC leadership team is Oliver Fox of Italy’s AssIC as vice president elect and Mikko Pasanen of Finland’s TKL as treasurer.

Evonik has completed the relocation and expansion of its precious metal powder catalyst plant in Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park. Production is scheduled to commence in Q4. No financial details were disclosed.

This completes the upgrade of the company’s global network of five precious metal catalyst plants. Evonik sells the catalysts under the Noblyst P brand name mainly for applications in APIs and agrochemical AIs. China is one of the fastest-growing markets for them.