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Helios Resins signs multi-year capacity reservation deal

Helios Resins signs multi-year capacity reservation deal
Helios Resins is a separate business unit of KANSAI HELIOS, part of Kansai Paint, and produces high-quality liquid resins for advanced coating and composite manufacturers globally. Helios Resins currently produces over 70,000 tonnes of liquid resins annually, including coating resins, composite resins, and polyester polyols for polyurethanes (PU) flexible foams (photo courtesy Helios Resins).

The Netherlands-headed renewable chemistry technology provider Avantium N.V. has announced that Helios Resins, a Slovenian based producer of advanced coating- and composite resins, has signed a capacity reservation agreement for bio-based furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) developed by Avantium.

FDCA is a raw material whose commercial applications include coating resins, surfactants, polyamides, polyurethanes, and the 100 percent plant-based polymer material polyethylene furanoate (PEF).

Helios Resins intends to purchase FDCA from a future industrial-scale facility, based on a technology license from Avantium.

Helios Resins is committed to sustainable technologies and solutions for its coating- and composite resins used for, amongst others, transport, construction, and industrial applications.

Providing alternatives to conventional fossil-derived materials is one of the strategic goals of Helios Resins,  therefore investing in the research and development of new bio-based resins produced from plant-based monomers.

Helios Resins strongly believes that meeting today’s needs has to be done without compromising the needs of future generations. One of our objectives is to partially or fully replace petro-based terephthalic acid, the key building block for polyester resins, with FDCA. This capacity reservation for FDCA developed by Avantium provides assurance that we can use FDCA widely in the future for our resins and coatings, said Dr Martin Ocepek, Director of R&D Synthetic Resins of Helios Resins.

Technology license model

Avantium’s business model is to sell technology licenses enabling industrial partners to build industrial-scale production facilities of (over) 100 kilotonnes per annum, utilizing its “YXY Technology” for the production of FDCA and PEF.

Avantium has already entered into its first licensing agreement and has the ambition to sell multiple technology licenses in the coming years.

This capacity reservation signed by Helios Resins underpins the commercial momentum of such technology licensing agreements and the demand for FDCA.

Avantium has developed a proprietary process technology to produce FDCA and is currently nearing completion of the construction of the world’s first commercial FDCA plant in Delfzijl, the Netherlands.

The FDCA Flagship Plant will serve as a stepping stone for Avantium’s licensing strategy. Avantium will sell FDCA and PEF directly from its FDCA Flagship Plant to its customers, in parallel to selling technology licenses to industrial partners.

We are pleased that Helios Resins has signed a capacity reservation for FDCA developed through our YXY Technology. This is a clear demonstration of the commercial traction of FDCA and underpins our strategy towards the technology licensing of our FDCA technology. It furthermore showcases how several companies in the materials industry will work together to make progress in the transition to renewable, circular materials, said Bineke Posthumus, Director of Business Development of Avantium.

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