Verbio commissions large-scale ethenolysis plant for bio-based chemicals in Bitterfeld, Germany

Verbio SE (Zörbig, Germany) is entering the large-scale production of bio-based chemicals with an investment of nearly EUR 100 million.

Verbio SE (Zörbig, Germany) is entering the large-scale production of bio-based chemicals with an investment of nearly EUR 100 million.

Today, the company is officially commissioning the world’s first large-scale ethenolysis plant based on rapeseed methyl ester at its Bitterfeld site.

The new plant is capable of producing up to 60,000 metric tons of bio-based chemicals annually — high-quality renewable carbon compounds that can replace fossil-based raw materials in lubricants, detergents and cleaning products, as well as plastics.

With this investment, Verbio is expanding its business model beyond the biofuels market.

In the future, the rapeseed methyl ester produced at the Bitterfeld site will be used not only as a source of energy in the form of biodiesel , but also as a raw material for the production of higher-value chemicals.

This enables Verbio to tap into an additional sales market for a raw material that the company already produces in large quantities.

“With this new production plant we are supplementing our biorefinery with a further stage in the value chain, building on an established raw material base,” says Verbio CEO Claus Sauter.

“By processing European rapeseed oil, we are strengthening regional agriculture and reducing our reliance on global supply chains that are prone to disruption.

In addition to sustainability considerations, this is of key importance for Germany as a business location.” This investment comes at a time of far-reaching changes in the European chemical industry.

Increasing international competition, high production costs and the need to shift to a new raw materials base are intensifying the pressure on the sector to transform.

Dorothee Bär, German Federal Minister for Research, Technology and Space, sees the new plant as an important sign of the future viability of the German and European chemical industries: “To know what is not yet known by anyone else.

And then to do what no one else is doing.

Verbio demonstrates how this is done; you are demonstrating this with your new production plant for bio-based specialty chemicals.

Your lubricants, plastics and detergents are not manufactured from crude oil, but from biomass such as rapeseed.