CropEnergies to use sustainable ethanol for production of ethyl acetate

CropEnergies is set to build a plant for the production of renewable ethyl acetate from sustainable ethanol.
The plant will be built in the Zeitz Chemical and Industrial Park, Elsteraue, Germany.
The supervisory board of CropEnergies has given the green light to the investment into what will be the first production plant in the new biobased chemicals business.
The total investment for the new production facility will be between €120 and €130 million and the ground-breaking is to take place early in 2024 and the commissioning is scheduled latest for summer 2025.
The announcement marks the next step in CropEnergies’ diversification process into new markets in addition to the mobility sector.
Dr Stephan Meeder, CEO of CropEnergies, said: “I am very happy that we are now moving on to the next phase of building our new production site and to deliver on the promise we made with our strategy for the transformation of CropEnergies into a supplier of innovative, sustainable products made out of biomass.
“This is indeed one of the challenges we face today: To make the products we use more sustainable. One way to do this is to defossilise the raw materials for those products.” CropEnergies’ renewable ethyl acetate is a sustainable alternative to fossil products and significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The project aims to be profitable within two to three years after commissioning.
The new production plant, which will be the first of its kind in Europe, will produce 50,000 tonnes of renewable ethyl acetate per year from sustainable ethanol using renewable energy for the process.