International Process Plants (IPP), which buys and sells industrial plants and equipment, has acquired Henkel’s detergent plant in Lomazzo, Italy, in partnership with Maynards, a specialist in industrial liquidation auction services. The plant, which sits on a 4.4-hectare site with 43,000 m2 of building space, had been scheduled for closure, despite the Lombardy Region’s attempts to work with Henkel to save it.
Chemours has completed its planned procedures with respect to an internal review that it first announced on 29 February. This essentially confirmed the details revealed in an interim report on 7 March. More will be published in the compensation discussion and analysis in the proxy statement for the 2024 annual meeting.
Symrise and India’s Virchow Group have agreed to make personal care ingredients from the Symrise portfolio through a new joint venture called Vizag Care Ingredients, beginning within 1H. This will be based on Virchow’s synthetic chemistry capabilities for API manufacture.
Symrise owns a majority in the new entity, which is based in Visakhapatnam and has one local chemical manufacturing site, enabling it to back-integrate into raw materials and form a resilient global value chain. Symrise will market the resulting products.
EuroAPI has suspended all API production at its site in Brindisi, Italy, until further notice. This followed an internal audit in which “quality control deficiencies due to potential local misconduct” were identified. These are being further investigated.
Syensqo has opened some new application development laboratories (ADLs) at Bollate, Italy, where it opened its ‘dry room’ laboratory for lithium batteries last year. They will focus on developing specialty polymers for applications in green mobility, energy-efficiency and sustainable sourcing, among others.
CEFIC has published ‘Safe and Sustainable by-Design (SSbD): A Guidance to Unleash the Transformative Power of Innovation’. The guidance can be accessed on the association website
This is based on insights from the chemical industry and bodies such as European Commission and its Joint Research Centre, the OECD, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It offers specific activities for different phases of industrial R&D to help the industry move towards “a sustainable, circular, and inclusive economy” by 2050.
W.R. Grace has formally opened an expansion of the pharmaceutical CDMO expansion project it began 21 months ago at its site in South Haven, Michigan. The expansion has added 25% more capacity, including a new 15 m3 Hastelloy centrifuge and three 15 m3 multi-purpose chemical reactors.
