Ray Technology™

Imagine a cost-competitive solution to making the plastics and textiles markets more sustainable.

Our Ray Technology™ is a highly efficient process that converts plant-based sugars into Ray plantMEG™. This is an important chemical building block for PET or PEF resin for bottles and packaging; fibers for apparel, furniture and automotive; and solvents (e.g. paint and coatings) and coolants. Avantium is scaling up Ray Technology™ and the demonstration plant in Delfzijl, the Netherlands successfully completed start-up and commissioning in 2020.

Avantium and Cosun Beet Company join forces!  

Cosun Beet Company and Avantium join forces and announced the ambition to produce plant-based glycols from sugars. To this end, the companies entered into a Term Sheet to establish a joint venture in which Cosun Beet Company will take a substantial share.

Cosun Beet Company and Avantium plan to form the joint venture in 2022, with the aim to make an investment decision for the foreseen commercial plant in the first half of 2024 and commercial operations commencing in 2026.

The joint venture is envisioned to be a world class producer of plant-based glycols to actively contribute to a fossil-free future. The joint venture will produce plant-based glycols by converting beet sugar into plantMEG™ and plantMPG™ using Avantium’s proprietary Ray Technology™. It is the intention that the joint venture will acquire a Ray Technology™ license from Avantium.

A bright step to the future

The Avantium Ray Technology™ is a highly efficient one-step hydrogenolysis process to produce mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) from plant-based industrial sugars.

MEG is a component for making everyday consumer goods, such as PET and PEF plastics and polyester textiles. This means developing an environmentally friendly plant-based version of this component has strong commercial potential. Our Ray Technology™ can deliver Ray plantMEG™ which is competitive with incumbent fossil-based MEG, both in terms of quality and cost, while showing sustainability benefits through significantly lower CO2 emissions.

The RAY demonstration plant is supported by the European Investment Council (EIC) under the SME Instrument (Phase 2); by a grant from the European Regional Development Fund (EFRD) through Samenwerkingsverband Noord Nederland (SNN); by a subsidy from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program for coordinating the Industry Consortium VEHICLE and by a SPIRE grant, part of Horizon 2020, for participating and coordinating the IMPRESS consortium.

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