XiMo begins catalysts plant

XiMo has started the construction of an industrial-scale plant for metathesis catalysts at the Gödöllő Innovation & Logistic Park near Budapest. Professor Richard Schrock, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005 for his work in the field and later founded XiMo, was among those present at the opening ceremony.

Due open in the summer of 2026, it will create 44 jobs, making molybdenum-, tungsten- and ruthenium-based catalysts for the conversion of bio-based raw materials into products such as pheromones for sustainable crop protection, plant-based flavours and fragrances, lubricants, surfactants and polymers.

The investment was backed by €27.7 million from the company’s parent Verbio and subsidies of €5.5 million from the Hungarian government.  Verbio will use “a significant share” of the catalysts produced there in its new plant in Bitterfeld, Germany, which will make renewable molecules from rapeseed methyl ester by ethenolysis.