The Column
It's the chemical industry, distilled.
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Holocene, a direct-air-capture startup, got acquired by Occidental Petroleum just two years after Carbon Engineering did.
A company who bought BioAmber's old assets now has new investors and is trying to make bio-based isoprene and SAF.
You've probably never thought about the used motor oil recycling industry, but it's growing, and Shell's new joint venture plant in Houston is the latest addition.
Increased supply from China and high natural gas prices in Europe are causing plant closures, and the situation is no different for propylene oxide.
Helium comes from weird places and is used for weird things, but it's supply is being depleted, so on-purpose helium is on the rise.
Making PVDC more recyclable means longer lasting meat or less fines for brands in the EU, but either way it's a good thing.
Evonik and AGAE are replacing alkylphenol ethoxylates with rhamnolipids, but at two different scales and with two different speeds.
Making solvents in Texas that reduce the viscosity of photoresists so that Samsung can add extra thin layers to its fancy 5G chips.
LG Chem's bio-based acrylic acid, enzymatic esterification of fatty acids, and Angola's first urea plant.
Licensing PEF production, using polymers to capture CO2, and making carbon black from tire-based pyrolysis oil.
Cracking ammonia with photocatalysts in South Korea, shutting down a century old Houston refinery, and building more niacinamide capacity.
Decentralizing chlor-alkali production, the molecular recycling of Plexiglas, and trends in eyeglass lens materials.
