Industrial biochemicals company cellulac (Little Chesterford, Essex / UK; www.cellulac.co.uk) has specified the investment it intends to make at the Dundalk / Ireland site leased from the Irish Whiskey Company and which it plans to retrofit to produce lactic acid (for previous coverage, see Plasteurope.com of 05.02.2014). The company plans to make available about EUR 2m in a first phase, during which it will revamp the facilities and enable them to produce about 20,000 t/y of the bioplastics feedstock, mostly earmarked for export. Contrary to earlier reports, however, this initial phase is not expected to commence before Q1 2016.

The larger chunk of the investment – EUR 25m in total – will go towards ramping up production to about 100,000 t/y. This later development stage is expected to commence in 2017 and wrap up by 2018, company CEO Gerry Brandon told The Irish Independent.

The UK group recently signed a EUR 35m, five-year partnership with Pharmafilter (Amsterdam / The Netherlands; www.pharmafilter.nl), a provider of integrated waste management infrastructure for dealing with complex waste. Under the agreement, cellulac will produce up to 90% of the core ingredients for disposable single use items and personal hygiene products compatible with Pharmafilter's recovery system in hospitals.