Origin and Avantium team up to advance plant PEF
An agreement between Amsterdam-based renewable chemistry specialist Avantium and Origin Materials in the US will unite the parties' complementary technology platforms to progress large-scale production of the latter's fully recyclable and 100% plant-based polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a biopolymer.
Proprietary technology from Avantium called YXY can convert plant-based sugars into furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA), a key PEF building block. Materials science company Origin’s own patented process, meanwhile, makes FDCA precursors like chloromethylfurfural (CMF) from wood residues. In working together, a pathway opens up for converting these residues into FDCA via CMF, they said.
The deal thus broadens Avantium’s non-edible and renewable PEF feedstock options, explained its chief executive, Tom van Aken.
Under the terms of their current arrangement, Origin has acquired a non-exclusive licence to use Avantium’s YXY process. This will enable its scientists to turn CMF derivatives into FDCA at an agreed 100 kilotonnes per annum scale facility. A separate conditional offtake agreement signed by the partners secures Origin’s supply.
Avantium, for its part, has committed to researching how to bridge the technologies to better develop the markets for FDCA and PEF in the form of textile, fibre and packaging applications, plus more.
Avantium’s PEF yarn. Courtesy.
