Green Chemicals Blog
nylon
Solvay collaborates with Ginkgo Bioworks
This is a piece of interesting news from Solvay on the recent announcement of its collaboration with synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks on the development of sustainable biopolymers as well as other specialty chemicals and materials that can be used from home and personal care to agriculture and food. As part of this partnership, Solvay … Continue reading
Bio-based commodity chemicals in the spotlight
Will rising crude oil price again accelerate the investments for the commercialisation of bio-based chemicals especially for drop-in commodities? This month alone, sugarcane ethanol-based ethylene producer Braskem announced the establishment of a joint venture company with Japan-based Sojitz Corporation to produce biomass-derived monoethylene glycol (MEG) and monopropylene glycol (MPG). The companies plan to make a … Continue reading
lululemon invests in renewable materials
US athletic apparel company lululemon Athletica Inc. has been very busy these past two months partnering all the way up in the company’s raw material supply chain. The company released its first Impact Agenda in October last year with a goal to make 100% of its products from sustainable materials by 2030. By 2025, lululemon … Continue reading
Arkema continues bio-polyamide plant construction in Singapore
There is so much news coming out today (maybe Earth Day should be every month) but I wanted to blog this one because of the nice video about their castor-based polyamide. But before we go to that, Arkema announced today that the construction of its world-scale plant that will produce bio-based Rilsan® polyamide 11 (and … Continue reading
Prada’s new collection uses recycled nylon
The blog has been reporting the lag in sustainability initiatives within the textiles and fashion industries for years but that seems to be changing. Prada announced last month that it has launched a new line of its iconic Prada bags called Re-Nylon, with the bags made of Aquafil’s ECONYL® regenerated yarn. The ultimate goal is … Continue reading
Bio-based chems market sees setback with Rennovia exit
We just published our Glucaric Acid Chemical profile last Tuesday for Tecnon OrbiChem’s Biomaterials newsletter (note: subscription required), but unfortunately, we were not able to include this news about Rennovia’s exit until I read about it today from Biofuel Digest. According to the article, Santa Clara, California-based Rennovia ceased its operations (I am not sure when exactly) … Continue reading
Genomatica, Aquafil in bio-nylon collaboration
Genomatica and Italy-based polyamide producer Aquafil announced yesterday their collaboration in the development of sugar-based caprolactam, a key raw material in the production of polyamide 6, using Genomatica’s bioprocess GENO CPL. According to the press release, caprolactam has a worldwide market of over 5m tons/year. Of course, I will report more about the current market … Continue reading
VIDEO: Arkema celebrates 70 years of Rilsan PA11
Hello blog readers. It is unbelievable that the second half of the year is almost upon us and 2017 actually marks the 10-year anniversary of the Green Chemicals Blog (late September 2017 to be exact). It has certainly been through some ups and downs riding in the wave of the renewable chemicals market and my … Continue reading
Bio-based polyamides update
I’ve been always monitoring activities from the bio-polyamides sector as I consider the nylon industry a high-potential area for bio-based chemicals. Here’s a slide from a presentation I gave early this year featuring various building blocks and intermediates required to produce a certain polyamide. The green arrows indicate current R&D/commercial production for bio-based alternatives. But of course, … Continue reading
Verdezyne partners for European bio-DDDA sales
Off-take supply agreements seem to be the trend these days in the renewable chemical markets, first with BioAmber and Vinmar, and now with this recent news from industrial biotech company, Verdezyne. Verdezyne announced that it has signed an agreement with Will & Co, a sales and marketing firm for raw materials, semi-finished products, additives, and … Continue reading