Clari­ant com­pletes con­struc­tion of the first com­mer­cial sun­li­quid® cel­lu­lose-eth­an­ol-plant in Podari, Romania.

Today, Clari­ant, a focused, sus­tain­able and innov­at­ive spe­cialty chem­ic­als com­pany, announced the offi­cial com­ple­tion of its sun­li­quid® cel­lu­lose-eth­an­ol-plant in Podari, Romania. The com­pleted plant is anoth­er import­ant step towards the com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion of the sun­li­quid® tech­no­logy, sup­port­ing Clari­ant’s strategy for the sun­li­quid® licens­ing busi­ness. The site will start oper­a­tions in the fourth quarter and pro­duce cel­lu­losic eth­an­ol based on agri­cul­tur­al residues.

Con­rad Keijzer, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer of Clari­ant, said, ​“Bio­fuels and bio­chem­ic­als pro­duced from agri­cul­tur­al residues play a key role in redu­cing our car­bon foot­print. This invest­ment and the suc­cess­ful com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion of this new tech­no­logy is a sig­ni­fic­ant mile­stone for Clari­ant and fur­ther evid­ence of our ambi­tious growth strategy to con­trib­ute to a more sus­tain­able world through innovation.

“The invest­ment also brings sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic bene­fits to the region. Sourcing raw mater­i­als loc­ally can max­im­ize the reduc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions. Fur­ther­more, addi­tion­al busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies are cre­ated along the region­al value chain. By-products gen­er­ated in the pro­cess are used to pro­duce renew­able energy to make the plant inde­pend­ent of fossil energy sources. There­fore, the res­ult­ing cel­lu­losic eth­an­ol is a vir­tu­ally car­bon-neut­ral second-gen­er­a­tion bio­fuel. In addi­tion to its use as a drop-in solu­tion in blend­ing fuels, this offers fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies for down­stream applic­a­tions in bio-based chem­ic­als and sus­tain­able jet fuel.

“It is encour­aging to see what we have accom­plished since we began devel­op­ing our sun­li­quid® tech­no­logy in 2006. The tech­no­logy was suc­cess­fully imple­men­ted in our pre-com­mer­cial plant in 2012 and since then five sun­li­quid® tech­no­logy licenses have been sold in both Europe and China. This mile­stone in Romania rein­forces our com­mit­ment to build­ing a more sus­tain­able future,” said Chris­ti­an Lib­rera, head of Clari­ant’s Bio­fuels and Deriv­at­ives busi­ness line.

The plant in Podari, Dolj County, was built on a 10-hec­tare site with up to 800 work­ers on site since con­struc­tion began in 2019. Con­tracts have been signed with over 300 loc­al farm­ers to ensure the sup­ply of the neces­sary raw materials.