Will rising crude oil price again accelerate the investments for the commercialisation of bio-based chemicals especially for drop-in commodities?
This month alone, sugarcane ethanol-based ethylene producer Braskem announced the establishment of a joint venture company with Japan-based Sojitz Corporation to produce biomass-derived monoethylene glycol (MEG) and monopropylene glycol (MPG). The companies plan to make a final investment decision on the first commercial plant in fiscal year 2023, and start-up of the plant in 2025. This project plans to construct a total of three commercial plants. No other details were reported regarding plant capacities and potential locations. The companies did note that 80% of the global MEG market is concentrated in Asia and this is where consumption registered the highest growth.
Braskem has been developing a chemo-catalytic production of MEG/MPG using sugar since 2017 in partnership with Haldor Topsoe. MEG is the raw material for the production of PET resin. Sojitz is also looking to produce biomass-derived paraxylene via the isobutanol pathway in order to be able to manufacture 100% bio-based PET.
Genomatica announced this month that it has partnered with Asahi Kasei to commercialise plant-based nylon 6,6 made from Genomatica’s bio-based hexamethylene diamine (HMDA) intermediate chemical. Nylon 6,6 is produced using approximately 50% HMDA along with ~50% adipic acid. Asahi Kasei intends to apply GENO™ HMD process technology and will have preferential access to early volumes or renewably-sourced HMDA and perform nylon application testing. Asahi Kasei anticipates licensing the GENO™ HMD process technology to commercialise bio-based nylon 6,6. Asahi Kasei currently produces petro-based nylon 6,6 under the brand Leona™, an engineering plastic featuring outstanding heat resistance and rigidity for use in automotive and electronics applications as well as yarn for airbag fabric.
It is also interesting that more and more companies from Japan and South Korea are announcing huge investments in the bio-based commodity chemicals space.
This week, Viridis Chemical announced its first production of renewable ethyl acetate from its manufacturing facility in Columbus, Nebraska USA. HELM US Corporation, the exclusive marketing partner for Viridis Chemicals’ ethyl acetate, is in the process of sending samples and distributing material to customers. Viridis said that it expects to be close to full production capacity by the end of this year. Ethyl acetate is widely used in the production of cosmetics, flexible packaging and coatings, paints and adhesives, etc.
More on these announcements will be analyzed in Tecnon OrbiChem’s Bio-Materials report next month.
