Avantium is announcing the sale of its Flowrence® parallel fixed bed reactor technology for refining applications to UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, for use at UOP’s research laboratory in Des Plaines, IL. This follows an evaluation program at the laboratories of Avantium in Amsterdam in which the Flowrence® unit was evaluated under a contract services agreement between UOP and Avantium.

“We are very proud to have sold this Flowrence® unit to UOP”, says Tom van Aken CEO at Avantium. “UOP has a leading position in the refining industry and continues to bring novel and improved catalysts and processes to the market. We are confident that UOP can utilize Avantium’s Flowrence® technology to further enhance its catalyst development for refining applications.”

About Flowrence® Technology

Flowrence® technology by Avantium is suitable for high-quality testing of whole extrudates and sieve fractions of catalysts. The Flowrence® can be used for a broad range of industrial applications that operate in gas, vapour and trickle phases. The Flowrence® parallel reactor system combines the reproducibility and accuracy of larger scale reactors with the countless advantages of small-scale reactors. This technology has proven to be leading for refinery, Fisher Tropsch, syngas, green chemistry and many other applications. Broad knowledge of these applications at Avantium combined with the Flowrence® is a powerful cost-efficient method of testing catalysts, and a faster way to bring it to market in R&D laboratories all over the world.

About UOP

UOP LLC, headquartered in Des Plaines, Illinois, USA, is a leading international supplier and licensor of process technology, catalysts, adsorbents, process plants, and consulting services to the petroleum refining, petrochemical, and gas processing industries. UOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc. and is part of Honeywell’s Performance Materials and Technologies strategic business group. For more information, go to www.uop.com.

About Avantium and Catalysis

Avantium is an independent company specialized in the area of advanced catalysis R&D and process development for renewables, energy and chemicals. Avantium defines itself as a creative accelerator, a company specialized in groundbreaking innovations and technologies for catalytic R&D services and systems and, based on this knowledge, the creation of commercial Furanics like YXY. Avantium has demonstrated the value and commercial potential of its unique technology and knowledge by collaborating with leading companies in the energy and chemical industries. For over a decade, Avantium has built up a global customer base for its successful R&D services and systems offering, including market leaders such as BP, Shell, IFPEN, Sinopec, CRI, Sasol and now UOP.

Catalysis by Avantium offers solutions ranging from sophisticated R&D systems and services to fully integrated long-term collaborative partnerships. We combine catalytic research based on our Flowrence® technology with a multi-disciplinary team of experts who have the flexible mindset needed to increase research output, improve success rates, reduce costs and accelerate time to market. Our experts have the skills needed to take catalyst research projects to the next level. Avantium offices and headquarters are based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For more information, visit our website at www.avantium.com.

The Global Cleantech 100 represents the most innovative and promising ideas in cleantech. Featuring companies that are best positioned to solve tomorrow’s clean technology challenges, Global Cleantech 100 is a comprehensive list of private companies with the highest potential to make the most significant market impact.

Tom van Aken, CEO Avantium, commented: “Avantium is proud to be on the Global Cleantech 100 list for the 7th consecutive year. We see this as recognition for the continued leadership in renewable chemistry and the progress we are making in our projects. Over the last year we have made progress on our YXY technology for producing 100% biobased PEF. As a result we announced a new partnership with Mitsui in December 2015. This partnership enables us to develop new PEF applications in Japan and Asia, one of the leading and fastest growing markets for packaging materials. Apart from that we are making good progress on our other in-house programs.”

This list is collated by combining proprietary Cleantech Group research data, with weighted qualitative judgments of hundreds of nominations, and specific inputs from a global 100-person Expert Panel. To qualify for the list, companies must be independent, for-profit, cleantech companies that are not listed on any major stock exchange. This year, a record number of nominations were received: 6,900 distinct companies from 60 countries. These companies were weighted and scored to create a short list of 323 companies. Short-listed nominees were reviewed by Cleantech Group’s Expert Panel, resulting in a finalized list of 100 companies from 17 countries.

The 100-member expert panel was drawn equally from leading financial investors and representatives of multi-national corporations and industrials active in technology and innovation scouting across Asia, Europe, and North America. The composition of the expert panel broadly represents the global cleantech community, from pioneers and leaders to veterans and new entrants. The diversity of panellists results in a list of companies that command an expansive base of respect and support from many important players within the global cleantech innovation ecosystem.

“The Global Cleantech 100 provides us with insight into the collective opinion of key market players on which megatrends and innovation companies are most likely to have a significant impact in the next 5-10 years,” said Michele Parad, Senior Manager at Cleantech Group and lead author of the Global Cleantech 100 Report. “Now in its 7th year, the Global Cleantech 100 program reveals which themes are staying relevant and which sectors are taking center stage.”

About Cleantech Group

Founded in 2002, Cleantech Group’s mission is to accelerate sustainable innovation. Core to this mission is i3, an online platform that connects corporates with innovation, at scale, by allowing them to find, vet, and connect with start-ups—efficiently building an innovation pipeline. The i3 platform comes to life at our global Events, which convene corporates and start-ups, along with other players shaping the future of sustainable innovation. Cleantech Group is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in London. For more information, visit www.cleantech.com.

About Avantium

Avantium is a scale-up renewable chemicals company that develops and commercializes a next generation biobased chemicals and bioplastic. Its most advanced products are the building block FDCA and the polymer PEF. Avantium aims to monetize this tremendous value opportunity through selling manufacturing licenses of its patented YXY production process and application fields. The technology basis of Avantium is a unique capability and expertise in catalysis and chemical R&D. The value of its catalysis technology platform is proven by Avantium’s Catalysis business, a profitable business of providing advanced R&D catalysis services & systems to the world’s largest oil and chemical companies. Avantium offices and headquarters are based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Avantium is operating an YXY pilot plant in Geleen, the Netherlands.

Media contact

Heather Matheson
Cleantech Group
Tel: +1 (415) 233-9714
Email: heather.matheson@cleantech.com

Dominique Levant
Marketing & Communications Officer
Avantium
Tel: +31 (0)20 586 8080
Email: marketing@avantium.com