Green Chemicals Blog
Presentation
New Feedstock Paradigm: Winners and Losers
The chemical industry had adapted to crude oil prices that had been fairly stable at around $100-110/bbl since early 2011, so the rapid slide in prices in Q4 2014 and into this year has caused much heart searching in the industry. The USA and the Middle East had enjoyed a huge advantage of low ethane … Continue reading
Why Tetra Pak chooses renewables?
Tetra Pak is making a case on why the company is now using renewable-based materials in some of its packaging and has recently released a new white paper examining the use of materials in packaging that can be regrown or replenished naturally as a solution to the planet’s growing resource scarcity and to sustain the future … Continue reading
Pine Chemicals GHG study now available
It has been awhile since I last covered the tall oil market that includes crude tall oil (CTO), tall oil rosin (TOR), and tall oil fatty acid (TOFA). In my past experience, it has been difficult to get information on this industry as pulp and paper chemicals companies are not that many and they are … Continue reading
US renewable chemicals to gain from the New US Farm Bill
I have been working on this since February but unfortunately travel and work has further delayed me from posting this. Tecnon OrbiChem’s April Bio-Materials issue just came out yesterday and now, I have a few days of blogging before becoming busy again preparing for the Biopolymers Symposium and BIO World Congress. This news about the … Continue reading
PBIO 2013 Oleochemical presentation
I have received so many requests for a full copy of my oleochemical presentation from last year’s Plant Bio-Industrial Oils (PBIO) conference that I am posting it here in order for me to save 15MB of space per email every time I send it. It is not downloadable but feel free to take notes. I … Continue reading
Sophorolipids from Mahua Oil
Aside from Tecnon OrbiChem’s coverage of oleochemicals on the monthly Bio-Materials newsletter, I have not covered much of the bio-based surfactants market in months. However, the blog recently received an interesting information on sophorolipids, a fermentation-based glycolipids that can be used to produce surfactants. The blog last mentioned sophorolipids in a September 2012 post when … Continue reading
Learning Deinococcus bacterium
The blog is usually not familiar with the type of microorganisms that industrial biotechnology companies use for their fermentation processes but I was intrigued about this Deinococcus bacterium that is being developed and promoted by France-based start-up biotech company Deinove. The company claimed to be the only one in the world to design and develop … Continue reading
Brand companies in bioplastic feedstock alliance
Brand companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Danone, Ford, Heinz, Nestle, Nike, Procter & Gamble and Unilever have joined the World Wildlife Fund to launch the Bioplastic Feedstock Alliance (BFA). Many of these companies, by the way, are here at Ecochem conference talking about their experience in the bioplastic area. I have already heard presentations … Continue reading
Ecover plans for 100% bio-based materials use
I’m here in San Francisco and excited to start the World Bio Markets USA conference. I don’t have that much time to blog for the next few days but here’s an interesting video from WBM USA webinar about Ecover’s strategies regarding the use of bio-based chemicals and materials. Last year, Ecover, the European cleaning products … Continue reading
Solazyme partners with Sasol on erucic algal oils
The oleochemical industry is definitely getting more and more interesting as erucic acid (C22:1), traditionally sourced from high erucic rapeseed oils (HERO), can now be sourced from algal oils as is the case with Solazyme’s recent announcement. I remember the old days when I used to cover this niche market for Chemical Market Reporter. The … Continue reading