BioFuels Journal

Bio-based chemicals in the U.S. are slowly beginning to replace their petroleum-derived counterparts and are projected to constitute over 10% of the chemicals market by 2015, says a new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

According to the report, the current century has thrown up new socio-economic and resource challenges, resulting from rapid population growth and urbanization, an expanding global middle class hungry for automobiles and modern technology, resource competition and scarcity, environmental protection and regulation, and more volatile economic cycles that impact all countries in the global economy.

The emergence of these factors has served as the catalyst for the emergence of what is being termed the Bioeconomy.

Commercial polymers like polylactic acid and polyhydroxyalkanoates are well established in the market, and growing strongly.

The agency suggests that the global worldwide capacities of bio-based plastics will increase to 3.45 million metric tonnes in 2020.

'The bioeconomy is rapidly growing, creating new economic opportunities and providing well-paying jobs for tens of thousands of Americans,' said Brent Erickson from the U.S.' Biotech Industry Organization (BIO).

The USDA report also identifies several challenges to continued expansion of the bioeconomy, including reliable availability of raw materials in the face of increasing impact from climate change and severe weather, water availability, etc.

According to the authors, the USDA report will be followed by a more comprehensive economic impact study, as data on the benefit of industrial biotech to the US is poorly documented.

'There is a whole lot of data about the European situation, but there is a need for that data to be collected in the US,' says BIO spokesman Paul Winters.

'There simply hasn't been the funding behind gathering the data at the federal level,' he told Chemistry World.

Globally, companies are investing strongly in new bio-based products and processes.

For example, German chemicals giant BASF in partnership with US agribusiness giant Cargill and Danish biotech Novozymes is developing processes to make acrylic acid and superabsorbent polymers from bio-based 3-hydroxypropionic acid.

US bioengineering company Celexion was recently granted new U.S. patents covering biological methods of converting carbohydrate feedstocks into linear chain dicarboxylic acids, diamines and amino acids used to make polyamide polymers such as nylon.

China is also getting involved.

The Canadian industrial biotechnology company BioAmber will soon begin supplying bio-based succinic acid (butanedioic acid) to Xuchuan Chemical, which operates four polyester polyol plants in China and has an annual production capacity of 150,000 tonnes.

The five year agreement runs from 2015 to the end of 2019.

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