Biobased chemicals company GFBiochemicals is set to begin commercial production of its levulinic acid using its proprietary breakthrough technology. The company has assembled an experienced management team, including a Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Operating Officer, to lead the company forward. GFBiochemicals' process technology has been developed and tested since 2008, and commercial-scale production will begin in the summer of 2015. The company aims to replace petro-based products with biobased levulinic acid and plans to scale up production to 8,000 MT/yr by 2017.
Biobased chemicals company GFBiochemicals is starting commercialization of its levulinic acid thanks to its proprietary breakthrough technology. Commercial-scale production will start in Summer 2015 in Caserta, Italy plant.
A new experienced management team has been put in place to take GFBiochemicals forward. Marcel van Berkel is GFBiochemicals Chief Commercial Officer. Van Berkel spent over 25 years at Solvay and DSM, including in DSM's Bio-based Products and Services division. Davide Gremmi joins as Chief Financial Officer. Gremmi has over 20 years' finance experience, most recently at Chemtex Group. Marcello Taglietti is Chief Operating Officer with over 20 years' experience, including at Air Products and Ashland.
Rudy Parton and Aris de Rijke will spearhead R&D as Director Technology & Applications Development and Director Technology & Engineering. Both have over 25 years' experience at DSM and Shell.
CEO Maxim Katinov said, "Our Team of experts has decades of experience in innovation, production and business development. We are now perfectly-placed to bring biobased levulinic acid to market and enable new applications that will replace petro-based products."
GFBiochemicals' process technology has been developed and tested at demo-scale since 2008. The Caserta plant will scale-up to 8,000 MT/yr by 2017.