Air Liquide Engineering & Construction (Air Liquide E&C), the plant-building arm of the French industrial gases producer, has signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) to license the Japanese group’s butene-to-crude technology.

MCC developed the oxidative dehydrogenation technology of n-butene to produce crude butadiene and verified the viability in a demonstration plant in Japan.

With the license, Air Liquide E&C said it can now offer a unique integrated solution for both butene dehydrogenation and butadiene extraction, which will allow it to extend the production of butadiene from the conventional extraction from a naphtha cracker product to on-purpose production based on a wider range of feedstocks.