Business Concentrates OUTSOURCING
▸ Two German firms integrate purchases Two German chemical firms, Evonik Industries and Lanxess, are rearranging business segments after their respective acquisitions of U.S. chemical makers. Evonik is combining its existing isophorone polyurethane cross-linker business with the epoxy crosslinkers it acquired in its January purchase of Air Products & Chemicals’ specialty chemical unit. The new unit has 1,000 employees worldwide. Meanwhile, Lanxess, which bought Chemtura in April, is folding Chemtura’s rubber and colorant additives business into Rhein Chemie, Lanxess’s rubber chemicals business. Rhein Chemie also employs 1,000.—ALEX TULLO
ENERGY STORAGE
▸ Battery firm Oxis opens testing center Oxis Energy has opened a test center in Abingdon, England, where it will develop its lithium-sulfur battery chemistry and
Oxis will further develop its Li-S batteries at the new test center. technology. Most portable electronics and electric cars run on lithium-ion batteries, but Oxis says its rechargeable Li-S batteries offer higher theoretical specific energy and improved safety in applications including aviation and electric vehicles.—MICHAEL MCCOY
INFORMATICS
▸ Evonik embraces digitalization Evonik Industries plans to invest more than $110 million in digitalization efforts by the year 2020. To that end, the German firm has formed a partnership with IBM to adopt technologies such as cloud-
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | JULY 10, 2017
Online R&D provider raises more funds Science Exchange, an online research outsourcing venture launched in 2011, has raised $28 million in a new financing round led by Norwest Venture Partners. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm offers its users access to more than 2,500 R&D service providers, primarily in the pharmaceutical sector, including contract research and manufacturing firms as well as government and academic labs. It claims 10 of the top 20 drug companies as customers. Science Exchange added Covance’s nonclinical science services—including lead optimization, safety assessment, drug metabolism, and bioanalytical research—to its site last month. In June, it partnered with the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation to connect researchers working on central nervous system diseases with a network of contract research organizations. Science Exchange has raised $58 million since its inception. It plans to use the new funding to expand to other sectors, including agriculture, cosmetics, aerospace, and industrial chemistry.—RICK MULLIN
based computing, blockchain, and the internet of things. The firm will also work with the University of Duisburg-Essen to develop the people and skills needed for digital transformation. “For us as a specialty chemical company, digitalization brings with it a world of possibilities,” Evonik Chairperson Christian Kullmann says.—MICHAEL MCCOY
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
▸ Metabolic Explorer plans French facility The French biobased chemicals developer Metabolic Explorer plans to build a facility that coproduces propanediol and butyric acid at a site in Carling Saint-Avold, France, run by the oil giant Total. The plant, which will cost about $28 million, will make 5,000 metric tons of propanediol and 1,000 metric tons of butyric acid per year. The firm also wants to build a second plant that is about three times as large. Metabolic Explorer says Total will help it raise the money for the facilities.—MICHAEL MCCOY
PETROCHEMICALS
▸ Lotte’s Malaysian unit has lackluster IPO Lotte Chemical Titan, the Malaysian subsidiary of South Korean petrochemical
firm Lotte Chemical, has raised $880 million in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. The amount was down considerably from the $1.4 billion the firm had expected only a few weeks ago. Lotte acquired the Malaysian unit, formerly known as Titan Chemicals, in 2010. It produces basic chemicals in two naphtha crackers with an annual capacity of less than 500,000 metric tons each, small by current standards.—JEAN-
FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
INSTRUMENTATION
▸ Dairy farmers get pocket spectrometer Cargill is launching a forage analysis service for U.S. dairy farmers using a pocket-size near-infrared spectrometer from Israel’s Consumer Physics. The SCiO analyzer connects to Cargill’s cloud-based forage analysis service via a phone app. Results help farmers manage animal diets for consistency and nutritional quality.—MARC REISCH
Consumer Physics’ spectrometer analyzes feed dryness.
C R E D I T: OXI S E N E RGY ( BATT E RY) ; CO N S U MER P HYS ICS ( DA IRY)
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
