Solvay recently announced the launch of its new Renewable Materials and Biotechnology platform, dedicated to developing innovative and sustainable solutions for a range of markets, using renewable feedstocks and biotechnology. I’ve covered Solvay once in a while and I also remember its collaboration (via Rhodia) on bio-based n-butanol with Brazil-based Granbio. Back in 2015, the companies’ JV called SGBio acquired the bio-butanol IP of Cobalt Technologies.
I am not sure what happened to SGBio but I have not heard of any bio-based butanol production coming out from Brazil. Maybe I’m wrong. Solvay does produce a glycerine-based solvent in Brazil called Augeo. It is currently used in fragrances, personal care, H&I cleaning products, paints, varnishes, and in the agribusiness and oil and gas segments.
According to Solvay, the new Renewable materials and Biotech platform will bring together several Solvay businesses to help meet growing demand for sustainable solutions by increasing the share of renewable carbon in Solvay’s product offering and developing new business opportunities enabled by biotechnology. It complements Solvay’s three existing growth platforms, Battery Materials, Green Hydrogen and Thermoplastic Composites.
The platform will accelerate the integration of sustainable renewable feedstocks into Solvay products. It will also enable the development of new approaches to manage the end-of-life of these products, which includes biodegradability by design. Last month, Solvay announced a successful demonstration with Carbios on enzymatic depolymerization of multi-layer PET coated with Solvay’s Diofan® PVDC (polyvinylidene chloride) high-barrier polymer. Results reportedly showed that the PET was fully depolymerized while the PVDC remains intact. The patented recycling process developed by Carbios works with specific enzymes to break down the PET molecules back in their constituent monomers using moderate temperatures which is ideal in the presence of PVDC.
According to Solvay, synthetic biology will account for more than a third of global output in manufacturing industries by the end of 2030. Biotechnology is expected to have an estimated economic impact of more than €2 trillion annually by 2040. The company’s objectives are to increase the share of sustainable solutions in Group sales to 65% and more than doubling the share of Solvay products based on circular raw materials or energy in Group sales compared to 2018, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.
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