Umicore has signed a license agreement with Japan Science and Technology Agency expanding its technology offering to the nobel-prize winning asymmetric ketone hydrogenation technologies of professors Noyori and Ikariya. Under the license, Umicore is allowed to market Ruthenium diammine and diphosphine Ruthenium diammine catalysts on an industrial scale.

"With this technology expansion we are able to give our customers access to JST's extremely powerful technology," says Dr. Matthias Grehl, vice president BU precious metals chemistry. "Our customers can use these catalysts in their vessels to transfer ketones into chiral alcohols. This license complements our current intellectual property for chiral ligands and catalysts for example those of the MeOBIPHEP or Josiphos type."

The agreement underlines the strategic focus of Umicore precious metals chemistry on emerging applications for organometallic precious metals  chemistry in general and in homogeneous catalyst technologies in particular. Besides chiral catalysts, Umicore precious metals chemistry develops  catalysts for metathesis applications and for C-X coupling reactions, and provides innovative solutions for precious metals separation and recovery for homogeneous catalysis processes.