Danish catalysis and technology company Haldor Topsoe has signed an agreement with Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute (JITRI) and Xiangcheng Suzhou District to form a joint R&D company in Jiangsu province, China. 

Topsoe will invest mainly technology and knowhow in return for a 60% share in the company, which is expected to employ 30-40 people over five years. JITRI and Xiangcheng Suzhou District will own the remaining stakes and invest 80 million Chinese yuan ($12.6 million) over a five-year period.

The new company will focus on the fast commercialization of new technology and services, said Topsoe, with special attention paid to the needs of customers in Jiangsu and China.

The first project will be on developing more cost-effective lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide (NCA) batteries for use in electric cars, for which China is the largest and fastest-growing market. The jv will also offer Chinese customers fast and efficient testing within hydroprocessing and emissions management (catalytic filtration) in a convenient location, Topsoe said.

“JITRI has been part of many R&D collaboration agreements in the past, but this is the first time we have chosen to go a step further and invest in a jointly owned company. Our decision is based on more than a year’s talks with Haldor Topsoe, where we have been impressed by their high level of R&D work,” said Liu Qing, JITRI’s president.

Bjerne Clausen, Topsoe’s CEO, added that the company is looking forward to launching a fast-moving R&D company in the important Chinese growth market.

In separate news, Topsoe has announced the successful start-up of a wet gas sulfuric acid (WSA) plant in China, to which it provided its proprietary technology that converts sulfurous gases into concentrated sulfuric acid.

The facility, owned and operated by the Bestgrand Chemical Group, is said to be the world’s largest WSA plant with a capacity of 300,000 t/y of sulfuric acid. It will treat 131,000 t/y of acid gas from the neighboring refinery operated by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Shell Petrochemicals in Huizhou City.

“The successful start-up is a milestone for the WSA technology both in China and globally and it proves that this technology has an important role to play in reducing harmful sulfur emissions in a commercially sound way,” said Frank Lei, senior sales director for Topsoe in China.

Topsoe said that since 2000, it has sold 68 WSA plants in China, of which 54 are on stream and 14 are under construction.