Renewable chemistry company Avantium announced it has secured funding for the completion, commissioning, and start-up of its FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid) flagship plant and the acceleration of its commercial deployment. The plant is currently under construction in Delfzijl, the Netherlands. Production at the new facility - the world’s first commercial facility for the production of FDCA from plant-based sugars - is expected to commence in 2024.
The Amsterdam-based company expects to use 80% of the net procceds to fund the new plant, with another 15% going towards general expenses, and 5% towards scaling up its Volta Technology from pre-pilot plant to pilot plant scale. That technology uses electrochemistry to convert CO2 to high-value products and chemical building blocks such as glycolic acid. By combining glycolic acid with lactic acid, Avantium produces polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), a carbon-negative polyester with an excellent barrier against oxygen and moisture and good mechanical properties. Avantium and SCGC have been working together on PLGA since early 2023.
Avantium has also developed a proprietary YXY technology that uses catalysts to convert plant-based sugar (fructose) into FDCA, the key building block for a wide range of plant-based chemicals and plastics such as polyethylene furanoate (PEF). PEF is a 100% plant-based and recyclable plastic. Applications include polyesters, polyamides and polyurethanes, as well as coating resins, plasticisers, and other chemical products.
The company has signed FDCA supply agreements with Helios and Henkel.