DSM, Roquette scale up bio-route to succinic acid

Innovation in the bio-based material sector continues to make ground. Amongst latest news is the decision by Netherlands-based major DSM to proceed with a 10,000 tonne/year commercial-scale facility for bio-succinic acid in collaboration with France's Roquette Freres. The plant, using yeast fermentation of crop-based materials, will be built on Roquette's site in Cassano Spinola in Italy, and be onstream in the second half of 2012.

Succinic acid can be used in packaging to footwear

Succinic acid is a chemical building block that can be used in the manufacture of polymers, resins, food and pharmaceuticals, says DSM, and provides an alternative to fossil-fuel based intermediates such as adipic acid and 1,4-butanediol. The two partners already have a demonstration plant running flat out in Lestrem in France and intend to create a joint venture company, Reverdia, to carry out business together.

Rob van Leen, chief innovation officer of DSM, commented: "The time is right to capitalize on the tremendous progress we have made together with Roquette in the last two years. Our proprietary yeast-based fermentation process not only allows cost effective production; it also eliminates salt waste and other by-products and thus improves the overall eco-footprint of end-products. This bio-based chemical building block is a substitute for various fossil feedstock derived monomers and proves that the bio-based economy is no longer a distant prospect."

And at an event in North America, DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma commented: "The so-called fossil-age will make a shift to the bio-based-economy. In two or three centuries from now, people will look back on our civilization as a merely brief moment in history where we in a period of just about 250 years shifted our total economy to coal, oil and gas. To make the shift back to living with, and especially off, nature, we need to start this shift now. We are at a turning point towards a next green industrial revolution to secure our feed and fuel needs in the future."

Sijbesma was receiving the prestigious George Washington Carver Award for Innovation in Industrial Biotechnology in recognition of his outstanding contribution and vision to the development and innovation in industrial biotechnology. He delivered a keynote address during a plenary session of the 2011 World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bio-processing in Toronto, Canada.

DSM is a new sponsor in this year's ICIS Innovation Awards 2011.

Tree bark may be used in polyurethanes

News has just come my way that Huntsman Polyurethanes is to join the Bark Biorefinery Consortium Project, a four-year Canadian joint venture between academia and industry that is exploring how best to extract value from tree bark, a forest residue left over by the lumber industry.

The collaborative research program has a total budget of Can$5.25m and is being funded by the province of Ontario together with participating institutions and industry partners. As part of consortium activities, representatives from Huntsman’s CoreScience unit in the US will work closely with scientists from the University of Toronto, who are leading the project.

Leveraging combined academic and commercial know-how, the Huntsman team will focus on one core element of the initiative: converting bark into value added intermediates for polyurethane to achieve improved properties and more renewable content. Previous research in this area has shown that incorporating bark products into other polymers can result in improved thermal stability and fire resistance, as well as improved adhesive properties. 

Niek van Wiechen, Global CoreScience Director at Huntsman Polyurethanes, said: “When the University of Toronto invited Huntsman to join the Bark Biorefinery Consortium, we leapt at the chance. The program has many parallels with our own corporate research and development (R&D) strategy. Huntsman is committed to developing renewable technologies that increase the natural content in our products, provide cost effective solutions for our customers, and offer significant sustainability benefits. This is a great opportunity to turn forest residue into valuable commercial products.”

Bio-economy needs supply chain innovation

Chemical companies are striving to embrace bio-based production to ensure their long-term sustainability. But there are many issues to resolve and questions to answer.

Most, if not all, major chemical producers and major agriculture combines are looking at the potential for renewable raw materials to replace petrochemical feedstocks, in some areas of their operations at least.

And it is not just the majors that are investing heavily into the required technologies. Small, hi-tech start-ups are often leading the way in technology terms. Many have been lured in and supported by the huge political push in North America and Europe for alternative fuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel.

But increasingly, these firms are focusing on devising routes to chemicals from biomass, as the market and prospects for further fuels investment stalls due to concerns over subsidies and the nonfood use of crops.

The stimulus from the fuels sector to the use of renewable raw materials to make existing and new chemicals and materials has been beneficial, however. Not only has it kick-started production on a scale not seen before, but it has begun to show how the logistics of using crop-derived materials might be managed to enable widespread production of chemical inter-mediates and products such as polymers, surfactants, solvents and lubricants.

The problem is that in the main, the feedstocks - starches, sugars, cellulose and oils and fats - are produced in rural areas, away from industrial production centres, and in low density. Thus the bulky raw materials have to be transported over some distances, adding significant costs and environmental impacts.

Before the bio-based economy can truly begin to play a significant part in industrial output, such problems will need to be solved at technical and economic levels.