Rennovia starts 1,6 HDO pilot production

As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, there had been so many news late last month that it was hard to catch up. I am about to have my first 2017 vacation tomorrow, so I am trying to post a bit before I leave.

Here’s one from Rennovia which recently announced the successful commissioning of its pilot plant for the production of sugar-based 1,6-hexanediol (1,6-HDO).

1,6-HDO is a specialty chemical widely used in a variety of formulated products, including coatings, adhesives, and elastomers. Rennovia’s novel production process employs its proprietary catalyst technology and is projected to provide 1,6-HDO with drop-in performance properties. This bio-based product is anticipated to have greatly reduced greenhouse gas and environmental impacts versus petroleum-based 1,6-HDO. In addition, Rennovia’s 1,6-HDO is a platform intermediate to several commodity chemicals with over $20 billion market value, including hexamethylenediamine (HMD), adipic acid, and caprolactam.

The completion of key piloting activities and the development of a 1,6-HDO commercial design package are anticipated by the end of this year. Rennovia is reportedly in active discussions with a number of potential strategic partners to support the commercialization of 1,6-HDO and downstream products. Archer Daniel Midlands Company (ADM), a current investor in the company, has expressed strong interest in supporting Rennovia’s commercialization of these products through feedstock supply and co-investment value chain partnering.

This news was reported last month at Tecnon OrbiChem’s Biomaterials newsletter, which included expanded market information on HMD, adipic acid and caprolactam.

By the way, next month is going to be a very active schedule for the Biomaterials team. We will be attending the following conferences in May. Let us know if you are interested in scheduling a meeting on the following events below:

• Nova Institute Biobased Materials conference in Cologne Germany – Philippa Davies, the business manager handling the Biomaterials newsletter, will give a presentation on overview of the current developments and commercialisation of bio-based chemical building blocks as part of Tecnon OrbiChem’s report for Nova Institute’s 2017 Biopolymers report.
• Sustainable Cleaning Products Summit in New York City – Doris de Guzman is attending this conference
• APIC in Sapporo, Japan – several Tecnon OrbiChem experts (Charles Fryer, Roger Lee, Doris de Guzman, Gillian Tweddle) will be presenting on topics such as bio-based chemicals, bioeconomy overview, CO2-based chemical feedstock and Bio-MEG technologies as part of the Chemical Marketing Seminar at the incoming Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference this year.
• Innoplast bioplastic conference in New Jersey – Doris de Guzman is attending this conference