The chemical company will now start working on the project’s front-end engineering design. The proposed plant will be the first in the US for DMC/EMC, with the country currently dependent on imports from Ube’s plant in Japan or Chinese manufacturers, the Tokyo-headquartered group said.

Capacity will be 100,000 t/y DMC and 40,000 t/y of derivative EMC. A final investment decision will be made in the first half of fiscal 2023 with operations commencing in the second half of fiscal 2025.

Ube produces DMC from carbon monoxide using its proprietary gas-phase nitrite process, which it said has higher quality and fewer byproducts than rival ethylene-based processes. However, at the US plant, Ube intends to use natural gas as a starting material in order to limit CO₂ emissions and produce at a cost-competitive price.

DMC and EMC are the principal components of the solvent used for electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries, and DMC is also used as a developing solution in semiconductor manufacturing. According to Ube, demand for DMC is anticipated to grow further as the uptake of electric vehicles grows and digitalization advances.

Ube said the US plant will allow it to ensure stable supply to customers, as well as expanding the scale of its business in the future through downstream expansion into environmentally friendly products, such as polycarbonate diol and water-based polyurethane dispersions as a C1 chemicals chain.

Establishing local production for the C1 chemicals chain in the US, China and Europe is part of Ube’s medium-term management plan for fiscal 2022-2024, as well as its long-term vision for 2030. The company has set up its C1 Chemicals Project as a separate organization under the direct control of president Masato Izumihara in order to implement its plans. As well as the US project, Ube plans to produce DMC from green carbon monoxide in Europe and set up a joint venture and licensing business in China.

In separate news, Ube has decided to build another plant for producing high-purity nitric acid in order to meet increasing demand. Capacity at the site in Ube City, Yamaguchi will increase by 50% and trial operations are scheduled to start in February 2024.

High-purity nitric acid is used for cleaning semiconductors and also in the etching process, and the market has been growing continuously in recent years, the company said.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist