Reaching this milestone is a decisive moment in Avantium’s evolution and will accelerate the commercialization of PEF (polyethylene furanoate). The FDCA Flagship Avantium’s Flagship Plant will be the world’s first commercial scale production of FDCA (furanic acid) with a capacity of 5 kilotonnes per year.
FDCA is the main building block of the 100% plant-based recyclable plastic PEF, which also has functional advantages over plastics made from petroleum.
Avantium believes that the commercial FDCA plant, in addition to generating revenues and profits from the sale of products from the plant, will demonstrate the potential for large-scale production and use of PEF to consumers, customers and partners. This should pave the way for a massive expansion of PEF’s applications, with a potential total end market of $200 billion per year, which Avantium plans to access by selling technology licenses to industrial companies worldwide.
Financing
For the new plant, Avantium has entered into a three-year financing agreement totalling €90 million with a consortium of lenders consisting of impact investors Invest-NL and four Dutch banks. ABN AMRO Bank, ASN Bank, ING Bank and Rabobank will each provide a bank loan of €15 million. Invest-NL will provide a loan of €30 million.
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