Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate here in the USA! I still have more ‘catching up’ posts and this one has already been announced back in July during the BIO World Congress but I guess the press statement (delivered by our friends from Sustainability Consult) just made it official.

Braskem has signed a partnership with Haldor Topsoe, a catalyst and surface science technology provider based in Denmark, for the construction of a demonstration plant in Denmark which will produce monoethylene glycol (MEG) from sugar using Haldor Topsoe’s MOSAIK sugar-to-biochemicals process technology.  Operation is slated to begin in 2019.

MOSAIK (MOnoSAccharide Industrial Cracker) is based on a two-step process using its Topsoe’s catalysts focusing on the conversion of sugar into MEG at a single industrial unit. This means it is more competitive than the current fermentation-based bio-MEG commercially available in the market.

The demonstration plant will conduct tests to validate the technology and confirm its technical and economic feasibility, which is a critical step before launching production on an industrial scale and commercial operations. The unit will be flexible in using different sugars such as sucrose, dextrose and second-generation sugars. The overall goal of the partnership is the start-up of a commercial plant in 2023.

I will be writing about my interview with Braskem as well as current market situation for bio-MEG on Tecnon OrbiChem’s December Biomaterials issue.