Umicore has signed separate five-year, renewable lithium supply agreements with two companies, Ganfeng Lithium of Jiangxi, China, and Vulcan Energy Resources of Karlsruhe, Germany. Both are integral to its cathode business and to its own environmental commitment.

The agreement with Ganfeng Lithium will come into effect in 2022 and will cover a significant part of Umicore’s future lithium requirements in Asia. The lithium is mined from hard-rock deposits in Australia under strict sustainability standards.

Europe's main trade association for chemicals gave a mixed greeting to the European Commissions's new sustainability strategy

The European Commission (EC) has published a new Chemical Strategy for Sustainability and invited the European Parliament and the Council to endorse this and to contribute to its implementation. It envisages revising REACH “in the most targeted way possible”, while also taking other initiatives to improve legislation.

Ten major global chemical sector companies have agreed with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to establish what they called “a breakthrough, pre-competitive development platform to accelerate net-zero climate technologies”. They are BASF, Dow, DSM, Solvay, Clariant, Covestro, Mitsubishi Chemical, Air Liquide, Sabic and Sibur.

ECHA has published advice on how to use the OECD guideline to REACH registrants on how to reliably combine different sources of non-animal data on skin sensitisation properties of their substances. This is the first guideline outlining how to use in silico tools like the QSAR Toolbox for this purpose. Mike Rasenberg, ECHA’s director for hazard assessment, described it as “an important milestone for advancing the use of alternative methods to assess chemical hazards”.

Clariant has announced the official completion of its first commercial-scale Sunliquid plant in Podari, Romania. This will be operational during Q4 and will produce about 50,000 tonnes/year of “almost carbon-neutral” cellulosic ethanol from 250,000 tonnes/year of agricultural residues sourced in the vicinity.

Silicon materials player Elkem has announced a new climate roadmap, detailing how it plans to develop its business in line with the aim of the Paris agreement of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, while also achieving revenue growth of 5-10%/year.

Verdant Specialty Solutions has acquired its US compatriot Baze Chemical from its founder, Curtis Baze. Terms were not disclosed. Baze is based at Odessa, Texas, employs 82 employees and mainly supplies ethoxylates for the oil and gas production, water treatment and mining industries.

Baze’s four facilities on the Gulf Coast include a 12,000 m² surfactants manufacturing and custom alkoxylation facility in Palestine, Texas, which opened in 2016. This has six flexible reactors for EO and PO, abundant storage and significant capacity for growth, Verdant said.