Bio-economy needs innovation in supply chain

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.

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

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 stimulus from the fuels sector to the use of renewable raw materials... has been beneficial"

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.
Another major challenge to overcome is to bring bio-based products to the market in a profitable way. The goal of many companies is to develop higher value-added bioproducts, but before these can be successfully introduced, companies have to produce lower value-added products, simply to fund development costs and to prove the technologies involved.
The slow adoption of biopolymers competing against well established petrochemical-derived materials is a salient example. With costs driven down over many years of production experience, conventional polymers are cost-effective in their areas of application. Bio-polymers have to compete on niche performance benefits or on their green credentials.
Perhaps a more rational way, and one that is being used by several technology start-ups, is to produce bio-based intermediates, such as ethylene and butanediol, that can be used in conventional reactions to produce existing products. There is then little or no market development needed and the bioroute has only to prove it can make biointermediates that are identical to oil-based intermediates.
The drawback here, say some, is that the established chemical industry in Western economies will see this as a way of going half-way down the green route, and will still operate its large chemical plants to produce conventional products albeit from renewable resources.
The risk is that emerging economies and technologies will leapfrog them to develop truly green products that are more competitive in the longer term. India and China are certainly looking at bio-based production and, given raw material availability and an innovative approach, could certainly produce some interesting and surprising developments.
A third route, now being opened up, is to use bio-based feedstocks to produce a range of novel intermediates that can then be used to produce products in well-known families. Thus succinic acid is receiving a lot of attention at the moment and can be used in the production of polyurethanes, coatings, solvents, thermoset resins and so on.
Further into the future lies the concept of the biorefinery, whereby a range of bio-raw materials will be converted using a variety of techniques into a range of chemical intermediates, ready for downstream conversion. This approach is today still in basic research but has very large potential.
QUESTIONS BUT NO ANSWERS?
All of the above raises as many questions as it does answers. What makes a location competitive for green chemistry, and which routes are the most promising in terms of technology and market reception? Can a bio-based economy be established on imported feedstocks or should these be locally available? Is fermentation of sugars the best route forward or production via bio-syngas?
Even more fundamentally, should companies start investing in technologies and market introductions even before government incentives or legislations are fully in place? And how should agricultural business chains collaborate with the chemical and materials industry and the sector of transport and logistics?
Later this month, ICIS and NOM, the Investment and Development Agency for the northern Netherlands, are hosting a high-level Roundtable in Amsterdam to discuss many of these issues. The outcomes of the discussion will be reported in a future issue of ICIS Chemical Business. For more information on NOM and how it aids investment in Northern Netherlands

ICIS Innovation Awards 2011 launch nears

As well as my role as Chemicals and Innovation blogger at ICIS, I also run the ICIS Innovation Awards each year. March is always a busy time as I prepare to launch the Awards, now in their 7th year, on 18 April. The call for entries will appear in ICIS Chemical Business and on the icis.com website from that day, with a deadline for entries of 4 July.

Dow Corning has worked with ICIS over these years to sponsor the competition, designed to celebrate the best in innovation in the chemical sector. This year again they will take the lead sponsor role.

This year, we have a new category focusing on sustainability and a new sponsor to go with it, in the form of DSM. Sponsors from last year - CRA (Best Products) and U.S.Chemicals (Innovation with Best Environmental Benefit) - are also supporting the Awards again this year.

For full details of previous winners and the sponsors, you can go to www.icis.com/awards. I encourage all of you in companies to take a look and enter this year.

Dow boosts innovation in Saudi Arabia

Dow Chemical has finalised its plans to invest in innovation in Saudi Arabia through support of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). A comprehensive cooperation agreement signed this week establishes Dow's Middle East and Africa R&D Center on the university's campus at KAUST.

Markus Wildi heads up Dow Chemical

in the Middle East

Dow and KAUST will collaborate on a range of academic research programs tailored to KAUST's areas of excellence in research and education. In particular, Dow will conduct R&D in the KAUST Innovation Cluster facilities until a permanent Dow facility in the KAUST Research Park is completed. Research will initially focus on water, water treatment technologies and oil and gas, and later expanding to include fields of study pertaining to infrastructure.

Dow will provide opportunities and funding to educate and train citizens of Saudi Arabia. Dow has already offered academic development opportunities and extended permanent offers of employment to KAUST students and will continue to do so. Dow will also provide financial support for research challenge competitions. Firstly, in alignment with Dow's 2015 Sustainability Goals, KAUST will administer the Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Research Challenge Program, which recognizes and rewards students for their innovation and research of sustainable solutions to the world's most pressing social, economic and environmental problems.

Dow's Middle East president Markus Wildi, said, "the Dow R&D Center at KAUST is a reflection of our commitment to the intellectual and human potential of this distinguished institution. Our collaboration agreement lends strong support to the notion that Saudi Arabia will become an engine of innovation and a generator of solutions for modern developmental challenges like clean water supply and sustainable living."

New entrant for bio-ethylene

The petrochemical industry's search for sustainable feedstocks has prompted another major producer to look at sourcing ethylene from sugars, via ethanol, so as to be able to make polymers such as polyethylene and PET with a "green" credential.

Braskem’s new green ethylene plant in Triunfo

The technology is already in use in Brazil, where sugar cane has long been used as a source of ethanol. Braskem and Dow Chemical have separately announced plans to make ethylene and polymers using this route. And Solvay has plans to make PVC from bio-ethylene in the country.

Now, in Europe, Total Petrochemicals has developed proprietary catalyst for converting ethanol into ethylene, in association with IFP Energies nouvelles and its Axens subsidiary.

The new technology will open the way, Total says, to "competitive production of bio-ethylene from renewable resources with lower energy consumption and lower CO2 emissions." It is expected that the technology will be ready for industrial implementation around end of 2011.

The alliance also covers production of other olefinic monomers from bio-derived higher alcohols which will be developed in parallel within the same technology platform.

“With this new approach we will be able to respond to a growing demand for plastics based on renewable raw-materials. Efficient alcohol dehydration will broaden the commercial potential of all the on-going developments in the production of second generation bio-based alcohols and contribute to sustainable application of such forms of bio-based feedstock”, says Bernadette Spinoy, Total Petrochemicals senior vice president for base chemicals.

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.