Avantium Renewable Polymers, a wholly-owned subsidiary of renewable chemistry company Avantium N.V., has signed a patent licence agreement with Eastman Chemical Company granting it the right to use Eastman’s 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid-related patent portfolio.
Under the agreement, Avantium will pay Eastman a licensing fee and ongoing royalty payments related to manufactured volumes. Payments will be partly made in Avantium shares. Avantium, said CEO Tom van Aken, is looking forward to growing its partnership with Eastman over the coming years.
The patent licence agreement ‘further paves the way for the commercial production of FDCA and polyethylene furanoate - PEF- from Avantium’s FDCA flagship plant’, which the company is hoping to start up in 2023. Whether or not that plant actually gets built still depends on a positive final investment decision, about which, more details will be released on 24 March 2021, the publication date of its 2020 Annual Results.
The licence will also be available for any subsequent industrial scale facility built on the basis of Avantium’s FDCA and PEF technology.