Verbio has commissioned an ethenolysis plant at its Bitterfeld site in Germany, opening industrial production of renewable speciality chemicals derived from rapeseed methyl ester. Nearly €100 million has been invested in the facility, which is designed to produce up to 60,000 tonnes of renewable chemicals each year.
The project extends an existing biodiesel feedstock chain into speciality chemicals by directing rapeseed methyl ester already produced at Bitterfeld into a further conversion stage. Material that would otherwise be used as fuel can therefore become chemical intermediates for lubricants, detergents, cleaning products and plastics, allowing more value to be extracted from an established renewable raw material stream.
That conversion uses ethenolysis, a form of olefin metathesis in which carbon double bonds are rearranged in the presence of a catalyst. Verbio applies the reaction with specialist catalysts developed by XiMo, the Hungarian catalyst company it has owned since 2018. At industrial scale, the chemistry produces defined molecules rather than a broad fuel component, making purification and product specification as important as the reaction itself.
Two principal products are methyl 9-decenoate, known as 9-DAME, and 1-decene. Verbio gives nominal annual capacities of 32,000 tonnes for 9-DAME and 17,000 tonnes for 1-decene, with other products taking total potential output to around 60,000 tonnes. 9-DAME can serve detergents, cleaning agents, lubricants and polymers, while 1-decene is used in high performance lubricants for engines, gearboxes, wind turbines and other machinery.
Using renewable feedstock for those molecules tackles a different decarbonisation challenge from replacing fuel in an industrial furnace or boiler. Carbon remains part of the finished chemical structure, so changing the energy source alone leaves the raw material requirement untouched. Substituting renewable carbon for petroleum derived feedstock can reduce reliance on fossil resources while preserving the molecular function needed by the customer.
This shift is commonly described within the chemicals industry as defossilisation, with biomass, recycled material and captured carbon offering different pathways to the carbon atoms required by the product. Each route carries its own constraints around feedstock availability, conversion efficiency, purity and cost, so the technical case depends on maintaining both production economics and the performance expected from the resulting chemical.
Bitterfeld provides Verbio with much of the infrastructure needed to operate that route at industrial scale. The site has produced biodiesel since 2001 and also makes glycerin and phytosterols, meaning rapeseed oil already enters an established processing chain before part of its methyl ester output is directed towards ethenolysis. The new plant therefore builds on existing feedstock handling rather than starting with a separate raw material system.
Industrial operation introduces challenges that laboratory chemistry alone cannot resolve because catalyst performance, reaction conditions and product separation all have to remain stable across large feed volumes. Distillation and downstream purification are especially important when customers require individual molecules within defined specifications, while catalyst life, energy consumption and yield determine how much saleable product can be recovered economically from each tonne of feedstock.
Those process variables also determine whether renewable origin can be translated into a commercially useful substitute. A lubricant, detergent or polymer producer still requires viscosity, stability, cleaning performance or processing behaviour to remain within specification, so customers will judge 9-DAME and 1-decene against established chemical inputs rather than accepting lower performance in exchange for a different carbon source.
The plant adds around 50 jobs to the roughly 120 positions already associated with Bitterfeld and follows a project that began with ground breaking in 2024. XiMo has also expanded catalyst manufacturing capability in Hungary to support metathesis applications, connecting catalyst supply with the production scale now being established in Germany.
Verbio says the process, feedstock base and production capacity can be expanded further if demand develops. Up to 60,000 tonnes of renewable molecules can now be produced annually from a feedstock already handled on site, with commercial performance depending on sustained plant utilisation, yield, product purity and customer demand at industrial scale.
