Thursday, 28 September 2017

California Company Plans Sarnia Pilot Plant.




From Paul Morden, Sarnia Observer.



A California-based bio-chemical company set to open a commercial-scale demonstration plant in 2018 at the Arlanxeo site in Chemical Valley is already expanding in Sarnia.

It was announced this week that Origin Materials is moving a pilot plant it purchased from Tennessee-based Eastman Chemicals to the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park, next to Modeland Road.

Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, a government-funded agency based in Sarnia, said in a news release it is supporting the $6-million pilot plant project in partnership with Lambton College and the research park.

“We’re quite excited about it,” Origin Materials CEO John Bissell said Wednesday.

“We really wanted to establish what we’ve been calling a ‘beachhead’ in Sarnia.”

Initially, the company plans to use the oxidation pilot plant at the research park to work with terephthalic acid, “but we’re probably going to expand it to some other chemicals,” he said.

Oxidation is ‘on the trickier side\ of chemical processes and ‘the staff and the safety culture in Sarnia is just incredibly important to us,’ Bissell added.

“It makes (us) a lot more comfortable than a lot of the other places you can imagine starting something like this up.”





Thank you for reading.



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