SCGC Drives Green Innovation, Moving Forward to Carbon Neutrality, Partners with Avantium from Netherlands, Converting CO2 to Carbon-Negative Plastic, Developing Pilot Phase for Soaring Global Demand

AMSTERDAM - SCG Chemicals Public Company Limited or SCGC, a leading integrated chemical player in Asia and an innovator of chemical innovations and solutions, announces that it has agreed to partner with Avantium N.V., a leading technology provider in renewable chemistry from Netherlands. Under this partnership, SCGC and Avantium agreed to drive carbon neutrality by further developing CO2 into PLGA or carbon-Negative plastic and scale-up to a pilot plant with an indicative capacity of 10 tonnes per annum.

Dr. Suracha Udomsak, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of SCGC comments: “SCGC is committed to innovate High Value Added Products & Services – HVA and develop Green Innovation such as SCGC Green Polymer and decarbonization technology to tackle low carbon. Our goal to to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2030. Over the past months, SCGC has assessed polylactic-co-glycolic acid or PLGA samples and we are impressed with the sustainability and performance characteristics of this innovative material. We look forward to working together with Avantium in the years to come.”

“We are delighted that we have entered into this partnership with SCGC, a partner that understands that innovation and bold action is the key to lasting positive impact for a sustainable future. Under this partnership, we can further develop the very promising carbon-negative plastic PLGA and bring this material to the next commercialization phase. Both Avantium and SCGC would also welcome other strategic and complementary partners to participate in this collaboration”, says Tom van Aken, Chief Executive Officer at Avantium.

Avantium is a frontrunner in developing and commercialising innovative technologies for the production of chemicals and materials based on sustainable carbon feedstocks, i.e. carbon from plants or carbon from the air (CO2). The technology platforms, called Volta Technology, uses electrochemistry to convert CO2 to high-value products and chemical building blocks including glycolic acid. By combining glycolic acid with lactic acid, the company can produce PLGA, a carbon-negative polymer with valuable characteristics: it has an excellent barrier against oxygen and moisture, has good mechanical properties, is recyclable and is both home compostable and marine degradable. This makes PLGA a more sustainable and cost-effective alternative.

Since early 2023, SCGC and Avantium have been working together to further evaluate PLGA. To this end, Avantium has produced samples of different PLGAs, which have been evaluated at SCGC’s Norner AS facility. The two parties have now agreed to take the next step in their cooperation and establish a Joint Development Agreement. Under this agreement, SCGC and Avantium intend to further evaluate PLGA in order to subsequently scale up production of glycolic acid monomer and PLGA polyester in the next two years to a pilot plant.