Avantium to Deliver Flowrence System for Catalysis Research and Development to Sinopec

    AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, April 08, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- SINOPEC is China's largest producer and supplier of refined oil products (including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, etc.) and major petrochemical products (including synthetic resin, synthetic fiber monomers and polymers, synthetic fiber, synthetic rubber, chemical fertilizer and petrochemical intermediates). It is also China's second largest crude oil producer. SINOPEC Research Institute of Petroleum Processing R&D (RIPP) mainly focuses on oil refining technologies, refining-petrochemical integration, pertinent petrochemical technologies, alternative fuels and new energy sources. By acquiring an Avantium's Flowrence unit, RIPP gets access to cutting edge high throughput trickle flow catalyst testing equipment. The Flowrence system will be located in the RIPP Catalysts R&D laboratories in Beijing.

Tom van Aken, Chief Executive Officer of Avantium: "The sale of Flowrence platforms to a world leading research center such as Sinopec is an excellent recognition of the value of our high-throughput R&D technology. We are proud to provide our unique Flowrence technology to Sinopec to help increase RIPP's R&D productivity and it will increase our exposure to China's growing R&D market."

Avantium's proprietary parallel fixed bed rector technology has been successfully applied for over 10 years in collaboration programs for gas, liquid and trickle flow applications (e.g. hydrotreating, VGO hydrocracking, syn gas based catalysis, selective oxidation and selective hydrogenation). The Flowrence is Avantium's proprietary commercially available parallel fixed bed reactor system. The system consists of 16 reactors (4 blocks of 4 reactors each) tailored to the clients applications enabling them to enhance their catalysis research and process optimization efforts. Flowrence enables users to test catalytic materials for a range of chemistries under industrial processing conditions, including high-temperature (up to 950 degrees C) and high-pressure reactions (up to 200 bar).

Profile Avantium
Avantium is a leading technology company specialized in advanced high-throughput catalyses R&D for applications in the energy and chemicals industries. Avantium's proprietary high-throughput technology enables a faster and more cost-effective development of new and improved products and production processes. Avantium has not only demonstrated the value and commercial potential of its unique technology and knowledge by collaborating with leading companies in the chemical industry but also by the development of a novel chemical catalytic process that enables the economic production of Furanics on basis of a wide range of carbohydrates. YXY is the brand name for the Furanics technology to produce green building blocks. These building blocks are applied to produce next generation bioplastics and biofuels (www.yxy.com). The company's headquarters and laboratories are located in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.

Flowrence Technology
For more information about our Flowrence technology, including downloads, case studies and pictures, please visit www.avantium.com/flowrence.

More information
For more information about Avantium, please contact Mariette Hoogendoorn at +31 20 586 8010 or visit the corporate website: www.avantium.com or the product website www.yxy.com.

# # #