IFF and specialty chemicals company Kemira launched Alpha Bio, a joint venture aimed at commercial-scale production of renewable bio-based materials with an investment value of €130 million. The Alpha Bio facility, to be located at the IFF biorefinery in Kotka, Finland, will convert up to 44,000 tons of plant sugars to various products, including high-performance biopolymers for use in various applications, such as home and personal care and industrial solutions. The facility will start production in late 2027.
Alpha Bio’s process will use IFF’s Designed Enzymatic Biomaterial™ (DEB) platform technology, which enables the production of bio-based materials using plant-based sugars and enzymes under mild process conditions. An example is a new class of alpha-glucan polysaccharides from the enzymatic polymerization of glucose. IFF launched several ingredients using the DEB platform, including its Aurist™ AGC biodegradable cationic biopolymer for hair care applications, Lyrature™ high-performance polymers designed for detergents and cleansers, and Nuvolve™ polymer-grade engineered polysaccharides for industrial applications such as the tire and adhesives industry.
Biomanufacturing investments are welcome news at a time when Europe’s manufacturing industries are facing historical challenges, especially the significant chemical manufacturing closures within the past two years alone. According to the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC), over 11 million tons of capacity closure was announced between 2023 and 2024, affecting 21 major chemical production sites in Europe. According to CEFIC, gas prices in Europe as of December 2024 were 3.9x higher than in the USA, placing Europe at a competitive disadvantage.
EU27 chemical output from 2022 to 2023 lost more than 14% of its volume, and there was no strong improvement last year. Last year, companies such as ExxonMobil (Gravenchon, France), SABIC (Geleen, the Netherlands), and LyondellBasell (Berre, France and Munchmunster, Germany) announced the shutdown of their steam cracker facilities. Dow will reportedly idle its steam cracker unit in Terneuzen, Netherlands, by Q2 2025. Eni-Versalis in Italy plans to close its Brindisi steam cracking unit by the end of April and its polyethylene production in Ragusa this year. The steam cracking site in Priolo will also shut down by the end of 2025 or early 2026. Eni plans to convert the Priolo site with a biorefinery (startup by 2027) and a chemical recycling capability.
The gravity of this situation led to several EU-announced legislative proposals this year aimed at restoring Europe’s competitiveness in a way that is compatible with its ambitious climate objectives.
The Clean Industrial Deal, proposed in February, identified the bioeconomy and circular economy as strategic sectors. A bioeconomy strategy is expected to improve Europe’s resource efficiency and to tap the significant growth potential of bio-based materials substituting fossil-based materials and related industries. This can also further reduce dependencies on imported raw materials. The new bioeconomy sectoral plan will lay down priorities for manufacturing and using biomaterials and for retaining them as long as possible in the economy.
Another proposal is the EU Critical Chemicals Act, which would support the development and decarbonization of existing chemical plants while fostering alternative carbon sources. Signatory countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and France — recently highlighted 18 molecules as key to European strategic value chains, five of which they labelled as critical. The list includes ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, toluene, xylene, phenol, styrene, ammonia, methanol, chlorine, sodium hydroxide, sulfur, silicon, sodium carbonates, hydrofluoric acid, methionine, and lysine. Those singled out as critical were ethylene, butadiene, benzene, ammonia, and sodium carbonates.
In late January, the EU Commission launched a Biotech and Biomanufacturing Hub to support companies—particularly start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)—in bringing innovative products to the European Union (EU) market and increasing their competitiveness. The Hub is a key deliverable of the Commission’s Strategy to boost biotechnology and biomanufacturing in the EU. This Strategy, published in March 2024, announced the establishment of the Hub to better support scale-up and to ease navigating regulations.
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