Sekisui Chemical Company and Avantium Chemicals Announce Collaboration Agreement

    AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, June 23, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- This is a joint press release of Sekisui Chemical Company and Avantium Chemicals.

Sekisui Chemical Company and Avantium are proud to announce that today they have entered into a collaboration agreement. In this partnership Avantium will be contributing with its proprietary high-throughput technologies and experts to the development and improvement of catalysts and process optimization of Sekisui Chemicals product portfolio.

This agreement allows Sekisui Chemical Company to access Avantium's high-throughput methodologies and experts as part of the suite of tools used in their development of catalysts and process optimization.

"The agreement with Sekisui Chemical Company allows both parties to make use of the advantages of high-throughput technologies for the development of catalysts for the most demanding chemical processes. Our skills sets have proven to significantly reduce the time-to-market of new products and this agreement with Sekisui Chemical Company demonstrates the value of our technological capabilities," commented Tom van Aken, Chief Executive Officer of Avantium.

Satoshi Uenoyama, Director of Sekisui's Corporate R&D Center commented "Avantium's worldwide collaboration experience, and its reputation for successfully finding valuable solutions with its state of the art capabilities and experts fits very well with Sekisui's partner requirements and R&D strategy to rapidly bring new products to the market while keeping all intellectual property."

About Sekisui Chemical Company
Sekisui Chemical Co Ltd. is a leading chemical company from Japan with over 200 subsidiaries globally involved in many business fields.

Sekisui is a world leader in many areas such as: interlayer films for automotive windshields (largest market share); foam products, tapes, and adhesives for automotive, electronic devices, and housing applications; medical diagnostics; PVC piping systems, infrastructure products, and housing developments; and fire protection materials.

Sekisui has installed solar panels in more than 80% of its commercial housing and has the largest amount of solar installations in the housing market in Japan.

Sekisui is a leading innovator in areas such as cleantech, applied materials, and nano-microspheres.

Avantium is now in a position to obtain governmental Pressure Law Approval to provide its tailored parallel fixed bed technology (up to 200 BAR) in Japan.

For more information about Avantium, please contact Anniek Gielkens at +31 6 144 96444, [email protected], or visit the corporate website: www.avantium.com
Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/avantium

Avantium is an independent leading technology company specialized in the area of advanced high-throughput catalysis R&D and process development. Avantium has demonstrated the value and commercial potential of its unique technology and knowledge by collaborating with leading companies in the energy and chemical industries. In over 10 years Avantium has built up a global customer base for its successful R&D services and systems offering, including market leaders such as BP, Shell and Sasol. Avantium offices and headquarters are based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The company also develops and commercializes YXY - its new brand name for chemical building blocks for making green materials and fuels that can compete on price and performance.

# # #