Braskem’s bio-based ethylene plant at Triunfo in Brazil
with a 40,000 tonne/year unit expected to start opera- tion in the second half of this year. The unit will use commercially grown reeds and straw as a feedstock. The company says it is also working with GraalBio Investimentos to set up a cellulosic ethanol plant in Brazil and has licensed the Proesa technology to US-based Genomatic for production of BDO (butanediol) from bio-mass. Elsewhere, research continues into technologies that
can capture CO2 and use that as a polymer feedstock. Bayer MaterialScience has set up a pilot plant at an
RWE coal-fired power station that uses CO2 from the flue gases to produce polyether polycarbonate polyols,
Below: US juice firm Odwalla packages all its single-serve drinks in Braskem’s bio-based HDPE
Despite Braskem’s major investments in bio-based
PE and planned commercialisation of bio-based PP - 30,000 tonnes of bio-based PP capacity by the end of 2013 – Belloli also advises against expecting a rapid conversion from petrochemical to bio-based polymer production. “I see two main challenges: the cost of the biosourc- es as the main raw material for these biopolymers and consumers’ willingness to buy bio-products or to perceive value in brands that adopt them,” he says. “We will probably not see in the next 10 years the biopolymers market grow to levels comparable to the conventional polymers market.” Fears over shortages of land for feedstock
production or concerns over competition with food production should not, however, be considered insurmountable problems for the long term, according to François de Bie, marketing director
for bioplastics at Purac. “In agriculture and the food industry, large amounts of the crop and its by-products are wasted today. Minimising these losses and agricultural improvements will push up the yield per hectare of land so we believe plenty of biomass can be made available to ‘fuel’ the bio-based economy.” he says. “In a few years from now second generation
raw materials, which do not compete with food, will also be available. In the meantime, we should not be afraid to convert traditional crops into biobased chemicals in order to develop new
Right: Bayer hopes to be
producing CO2 based feed-
stocks on an
industrial scale by 2015
50
technologies and start the transition to a biobased economy,” he says. Italian company M&G Group is one of the companies
working on second generation biochemical production. It says construction of the first industrial–scale plant using the Proesa second generation bioethanol technology it has developed with Chemtex is on track,
which can be used as pre-cursors in PU production. The company hopes to begin commercial production in 2015 using this catalytic technology. Meanwhile, technology commercialisation company
Norner Verdandi, a subsidiary of Norway’s Norner plastics institute, has taken a 30% stake in Econic, which is developing catalysts enabling production of
polymer feedstocks from CO2 for PU and PC polymeri- sation. Norner Verdandi says its investment will allow Econic to scale up its catalyst manufacturing processes.
Pressure from the top The pressure to move to bio-based plastics is not just coming from brand owners. Regulators are also moving to incentivise investment in these new technologies. In the US, President Obama last month issued a memo to heads of all executive departments and agencies reminding them of their responsibility under the US Department of Agriculture’s BioPreferred programme to increase procurement of bio-based products. Also last month, the European Commission an-
nounced the adoption of a strategy designed to ensure development of a sustainable bio-economy. In a launch statement, commissioner for research, innovation and science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said: “Europe needs to make the transition to a post-petroleum economy.