🏭 The Column: October 17, 2025

Good morning. If you’re in the market for an unused electrolyzer/liquefaction plant (or any of the relevant equipment), let me know. Happy to put you in touch with someone who can help you out.

Teamwork to make 5-HMF work

Furans have been mentioned in this newsletter quite a few times. Origin Materials was trying to convert cellulose into chloromethylfurfural (CMF), Avantium was trying to convert fructose into HMF, and together they were working to convert either CMF or HMF into FDCA—which would then be polymerized with ethylene glycol (MEG) to make a polyethylene terephthalate replacement: polyethylene furanoate (PEF). But the real story here is that furans (CMF and its reduced forms) can be converted into a wide variety of chemicals, giving furans the potential to be platform molecules in the same way that ethylene or propylene are platform molecules. And while Origin is currently commercializing PET-based bottle caps (so they can generate cash soon), the furan dream lives on: Michelin is leading an EU-funded project to build a 3 KTA HMF plant with help from various research centers and universities, Arkema, Avantium, and now Kraton. The idea being that the joint effort will produce enough HMF to expand application development. [LINK]

Replacing coal with wood-based pellets

While the aggressive push towards sustainability has flamed out a bit in the US, plenty of other nations are still pursuing their decarbonization goals. For example, Japan is targeting a 60% reduction in emissions by 2035 (from 2013 levels), and part of that plan involves tackling the low hanging fruit: coal power plants. But instead of shutting down plants, another way to reduce their emission footprint is to replace some of that coal feedstock with thermally-upgraded wood pellets (which can be blended with coal at levels between 5-20%). There is some precedent for this—there’s a 70 KTA plant in Norway and a 75 KTA plant in Thailand—but now Japan’s Idemitsu has started up a 120 KTA plant in Vietnam to valorize their abundant supply of acacia trees, with hopes of scaling up to 3,000 KTA. [LINK]

Nouryon is making more metal alkyls

I saw that Nouryon doubled its production of triethylaluminum (TEA)—the primary catalyst used to polymerize propylene—at its site in Jiaxing, China, which reminded me of a fun demonstration I saw while interning at a polypropylene plant about 6 years ago: TEA made contact with water, which resulted in a violent explosion. It was very Red Asphalt in spirit. The point was just to impress on us how dangerous even a little water can be for a polypropylene plant. Anyways, expanding TEA production just tracks packaging and automotive-driven demand for polyolefins. A mildly more interesting tidbit is that Nouryon now plans to make modified methylaluminoxane (MMAO) at this same site in a couple of years. MMAO is the main catalyst used to produce various polyolefin elastomers (POEs), which are used as encapsulant layers in solar panels. [LINK]

Other Things Happened:

Sasol is commercializing a new non-ionic surfactant made from oil derived from black soldier fly larvae. According to a local union, Braskem has stopped chlor-alkali production. Polyplastics is being absorbed into Daicel. An India-based company is expanding its dilute hydrofluoric acid plant from 5 to 10 KTA, and another just started up a 35 KTA ECH plant. LG Chem is no longer producing HDPE in Daesan, South Korea. The US dropped new sanctions to limit Iran’s ability to export petroleum-based products. Clariant is expanding production of its halogen-free flame retardants in China. Poland’s Orlen offered $280m to buy Grupa Azoty’s polyolefin business.