Avantium announces opening and start-up of its YXY Pilot Plant
8 December, 2011 – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Avantium has announced that it has officially opened its pilot plant in Geleen, the Netherlands. Following the opening ceremony, Avantium has initiated the start-up of its YXY pilot plant. The pilot plant serves to demonstrate Avantium’s YXY technology for the production of building blocks for green materials and fuels. The pilot plant will also produce building blocks and plastics for application development of its development partners, including The Coca-Cola Company, Teijin Aramid and Solvay. Avantium’s pilot plant is located at the Chemelot site in Geleen, the Netherlands.
The opening ceremony was witnessed by over 200 guests of Avantium, including customers, investors, government officials, business partners and employees.
In June 2011 Avantium secured EUR 30 million of financing. The financing included a EUR 4 million innovation loan of Agentschap NL, of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation.
Tom van Aken, Chief Executive Officer of Avantium comments: "The start-up of our pilot plant is an important milestone in the development of our YXY technology. We have completed the construction of the pilot plant in record time and in parallel we have built a manufacturing organization to operate the pilot plant 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. It is a great illustration of the strong momentum we are in to further develop and commercialize our YXY technology."
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For more information about Avantium, please contact us at +31 20 586 8010 or visit the corporate website: www.avantium.com or the product website: www.yxy.com
About Avantium
Avantium is a leading technology company specialized in the area of advanced high-throughput R&D. The company develops and commercializes YXY - its brand name for the technology to produce chemical building blocks for green materials with exceptional product properties at a competitive price. Combined with the significant reduction in environmental footprint, Avantium's lead application PEF, fulfills all key criteria to become the next generation biobased plastics for bottles, film and fibers.
Avantium has demonstrated the value and commercial potential of its unique technology by collaborating with leading companies in the energy and chemical industries. It has a proven track record in offering fast and efficient chemical catalytic development services and systems to market leaders such as BP, Shell and Sasol. Avantium offices and headquarters are based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
About YXY
Avantium has developed YXY (pronounced as icksy) - a family of green building blocks for making materials and fuels that can compete on both price and performance with oil based alternatives, but which have a superior environmental footprint. YXY is a patented technology that converts biomass into Furanics building blocks, such as FDCA (2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid). FDCA is the monomer that can be used for the production of the bio-based polyester PEF (Poly-ethylene-furanoate). YXY has the potential to become the perfect solution for today's challenges, using carbohydrates as feedstock to enable the manufacture of green and sustainable products. This fast and cost-effective production process is based on Avantium's catalytic technology. YXY can be implemented in existing chemical production assets. Avantium is collaborating with leading companies in the industry to develop and produce green materials and fuels based on YXY building blocks. See www.yxy.com for more information.