World's First Industrial-Scale Plant: Verbio Produces Specialty Chemicals from Biomass

The bioeconomy company Verbio, based in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, is pioneering green alternatives to fossil raw materials. Using biomass, Verbio produces renewable chemicals for mobility, industry and agriculture. A world first is its industrial-scale plant, which brings Nobel Prize-winning technology into commercial application: high-value renewable carbon compounds are produced from rapeseed oil.

There are filling stations bearing the name “Verbio” in green lettering. And buses carrying the Verbio logo are a familiar sight in the south of Saxony-Anhalt. The company's history began 25 years ago with the opening of its first biodiesel production facility in Bitterfeld-Wolfen. Today, Verbio not only markets biodiesel, bioethanol and biomethane as alternatives to fossil fuels; in simple terms, it also uses rapeseed oil instead of crude oil to produce bio-based chemicals.

Verbio is now one of the highest-revenue companies in Saxony-Anhalt. To date, it operates eight biorefinery plants across Europe, Asia and North America, employing around 1,400 people. Since 2006, Verbio has been one of just three publicly listed companies headquartered in Saxony-Anhalt.

Bioeconomy company Verbio is located in the South of Saxony-Anhalt. Foto: IMG

A Pioneer in Technology
The Verbio brand is largely unknown to the general public, as the company exclusively manufactures products for industrial customers. Yet for many years, Verbio has been one of Europe's leading technology providers in the renewable energy sector. When it comes to technology, the team led by company founder and CEO Claus Sauter is once again making headlines. In October 2026, Verbio commissioned the world's first industrial-scale ethenolysis plant based on rapeseed methyl ester at its site in the Bitterfeld-Wolfen Chemical Park. Ethenolysis is a chemical process in which unsaturated hydrocarbons (olefins) are split using ethene (ethylene) and specialised catalysts, then converted into new end products.

“About ten years ago, our colleagues in the research department pointed out that it was a real waste to use the valuable molecules contained in rapeseed oil solely to produce fuel that is then burned in vehicles. We found a technology that allows us to further process this biodiesel into specialty chemicals for a wide range of applications,” says Claus Sauter.

He has a longstanding understanding of the potential of biomass. Shortly after graduating in business and social sciences, Claus Sauter took over the management of his family's business, Alois Sauter Landesprodukte-Großhandlung, in Obenhausen, Bavaria, in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, he visited the successor companies of the former agricultural production cooperatives in the newly established German federal states. “I wanted to draw on the expertise of their highly qualified agricultural engineers and make use of the large areas of land available to build my own company,” he explains. Fortunately, he found an experienced partner in renowned engineer Dr Georg Pollert. As a later co-founder of Verbio, Pollert contributed his expertise in biodiesel production.

Portrait of Claus Sauter, CEO of Verbio SE. © Verbio SE

Economic and Environmental Benefits
The first biodiesel production facility began operating in Bitterfeld in 2001. Bioethanol production followed in Zörbig in 2004 and in Schwedt, Brandenburg, in 2005. In 2014, Schwedt saw the launch of the first plant to produce biomethane exclusively from straw.
For years, Verbio's own fleet of trucks has demonstrated the practical viability of its innovative biofuels, such as bio-LNG made from agricultural residues and produced in-house. Verbio's network of bio-CNG and bio-LNG filling stations has since grown to 48 company-owned and partner-operated stations across Germany.

“Liquefied renewable fuel made from biomethane can replace fossil diesel in heavy-duty road freight transport,” Claus Sauter is convinced. The company also offers support to logistics providers seeking to switch to bio-LNG. “Using locally sourced biomass makes us independent of global supply chains and the price fluctuations associated with them. This benefits both economic viability and climate protection,” says Verbio's CEO.
Looking at the transport sector, he also points to current fuel prices: “For months, E10 has been the cheapest liquid fuel available at filling stations in Europe. India is already blending 20 per cent bioethanol into petrol, and E15 is already a standard fuel in the United States. The EU is currently considering the introduction of E20.”

Production of renewable chemicals at Verbio Bitterfeld-Wolfen. Foto: IMG

Chemical Building Blocks from Rapeseed Oil
Over the past few years, the biodiesel plant in Bitterfeld has evolved into an integrated biorefinery. In addition to biodiesel, it produces glycerine and phytosterols from European rapeseed oil. These naturally occurring plant-based compounds are used in the cosmetics, pharmaceutical and food industries.

“With our new industrial-scale ethenolysis plant, we are opening up an additional market based on rapeseed oil, which has been an established and proven raw material for our company for many years,” says Claus Sauter. He estimates that the new plant will be capable of producing 60,000 tonnes of bio-based specialty chemicals annually.

Customers will further process these “chemical building blocks” according to their intended applications, for example into high-performance lubricants, detergents and cleaning products or bio-based plastics. Interest comes from companies in Germany and across Europe, as well as enquiries from North and South America and Asia.Sauter emphasises: “A sustainable energy and raw material supply requires carbon molecules derived from biomass wherever electrification is not an option – in the chemical industry, for example.”

Nobel Prize-Winning Technology for Ethenolysis
“The chemical industry cannot be decarbonised. The solution lies in defossilisation – replacing fossil carbon with renewable carbon,” says Dr Andreas Kohl. The chemist is responsible for Verbio's Specialty Chemicals and Catalysts division. He explains: “Through ethenolysis, we want to harness the fact that plants have already produced molecules with specific chemical functionalities themselves.”

Two American scientists and one French scientist developed the process, which makes it possible to selectively break and reconnect double bonds in hydrocarbons. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005. The contribution made by American scientist Richard R. Schrock was the development of catalysts that make ethenolysis economically viable. Verbio is now bringing the process into industrial-scale application for the first time.

Dr Andreas Kohl. © Verbio SE

The company XiMo, founded by Schrock in Hungary in 2012, is now a subsidiary of Verbio. It manufactures the catalysts that make it possible to selectively convert carbon compounds from rapeseed oil into new molecules for chemical applications. “Richard Schrock's discovery is the foundation of Verbio's new technology,” says Andreas Kohl.

Verbio has invested just under €100 million in the project to produce bio-based chemicals. The Bitterfeld plant received funding under the Joint Federal Government/Länder Scheme for the Improvement of Regional Economic Structures (GRW), in recognition of its particularly environmentally friendly and innovative technologies. Around 50 new jobs have been created. This means that approximately 130 people will be employed at Verbio's site in the Bitterfeld-Wolfen Chemical Park in future.

“Our location offers key advantages: its proximity to regional agriculture, which ensures the supply of raw materials, and the existing industrial infrastructure,” says Verbio CEO Claus Sauter, reaffirming his long-standing commitment to Saxony-Anhalt, where the company's journey began.

Author: Kathrain Graubaum

More information: https://www.verbio.de/en/company/

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