16. Dec 2020
Avantium awarded €5.4 million grant from Netherlands Enterprise Agency for expansion of FDCA pilot plant
Avantium N.V, a leading technology company in renewable chemistry, announces that the Netherlands Enterprise Agency RVO has awarded the company a €5.4 million grant as part of the Demonstration Energy and Climate Innovation (DEI+) scheme, to be paid out in 16 tranches over a period of 4 years.
This grant is solely designated for the expansion of Avantium’s FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid) pilot plant in Geleen (The Netherlands) and will therefore not be used for the potential construction of the FDCA flagship plant in Delfzijl. FDCA is the key building block for the high-quality, fully recyclable, plant-based polymer PEF (polyethylene furanoate) to be used in a wide range of applications such as bottles, packaging, film and textiles.
RVO is an executive department of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, which supports innovative and sustainable entrepreneurship by Dutch companies. With the DEI+ scheme, RVO financially supports projects that contribute to a cost-effective reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030. Avantium’s YXY plants-to-plastics technology to produce FDCA and PEF fits perfectly into this initiative.
Avantium will use the grant to set up new units in the FDCA pilot plant to demonstrate optimal polymerisation1 as well as mechanical recycling of pure PEF and PET/PEF mixtures. Avantium’s PEF can be used in both monolayer PEF applications and as a barrier material in multilayer PET applications, enabling improved performance and full recyclability of both pure PEF and PET/PEF mixtures. This is a solution for many plastic applications, such as small sized bottles which are not fully recyclable as they include other materials (e.g. nylon) for barrier properties. With the new units, Avantium can further validate and showcase the quality of (recycled) PEF as a monolayer and PET/PEF multilayers in bottle, film and fibre applications.
With this expansion, the entire PEF value chain will be covered at the FDCA pilot plant in Geleen. As a result of this, the pilot plant can act as a true centre of excellence for Avantium’s YXY Technology. Heleen Goorissen, Director Innovation & Technology of Avantium Renewable Polymers, noted that the DEI+ grant of RVO for the new piloting units will allow Avantium to independently test and prove all the steps in its YXY Technology.
She added: "The pilot plant expansion will support the successful operations of our FDCA flagship plant, planned to start-up in 2023, and enables us to actively file new patent applications to protect our leading FDCA/PEF position and our licensing strategy.”
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