Just a few short weeks after making its process available for licensing (see Plasteurope.com of 10.07.2015), sustainable chemicals specialist Bio-on (Bologna / Italy; www.bio-on.it) has found a taker. Brazilian investment group Moore Capital (Sao Paulo; www.moorecapital.com.br) is paying EUR 5.5m for the production license and investing another EUR 80m in the first facility to use Bio-On’s proprietary technology, which will turn sugar cane co-products into PHA bioplastic. The plant, which will have capacity for 10,000 t/y, will be located either in Sao Paulo or Acre state. A proposed start-up date was not announced, but Moore has reserved for itself the option of building a second plant of this kind in Brazil.

About 60 people are expected to find jobs at the facility, which will turn out PHAs that Bio-On says guarantee the same thermo-mechanical properties as polymers made with hydrocarbons, and at the same time are fully naturally biodegradable. The Italian group is currently building a PHA facility using potato waste as a feedstock in Italy (see Plasteurope.com of 02.04.2015).