Introduction by Michael Carus, Nova Institute
\nThis is the 9th edition of the International Conference on Bio-based Materials gathering 200 participants from 23 different countries. The Biotechnology sector is currently showing some weaknesses, mostly due\u00a0to a lack of clear long term political support and a lack of willingness from users to pay a higher price for bio-based products as the current price of \u00a0petro-based chemicals \u00a0is low.
\nNon-committal climate decisions show almost no positive impact and market intervention of policy makers is likely to be much more moderate in the future than in the recent past illustrated by what has been achieved in the USA under the last Obama\u2019 mandate.<\/p>\n
Policy drivers which impact renewable chemical Technologies in the US (Dr Rina Singh, Biotechnology Innovation Organization USA)<\/p>\n
BIO is a trade association based in Washington with more than 1100 companies participating to Bio-tech innovation.
\nThe Agricultural Act of 2014 is the legal foundation of the funding of bio-preferred programs for the following five years. Renewable Chemicals have been properly defined. Loan guarantee program (up to 200 Million USD) has been established to support commercial scale manufacturing of renewable chemicals and bio-based products. This is clearly a difference with Europe where no such support exists to scale-up demonstrated technologies.
\nBiosynthetic Technologies has been he first company to benefit from this support for oil plant based lubricants and chemicals.
\nRenewable Chemicals Act of 2015 has reintroduced Investment\/Production Tax Credit to accelerate domestic manufacturing.
\nTop ten strategic building blocks highlighted from DOE report in 2004 continue to focus attention and investment successfully on these listed key molecules such as succinic acid.
\nFDCA and PEF highlighted as extremely exciting buiding block and polymer , specifically for the food and beverage sector.
\nJob creation linked to bio-based chemicals estimated to amount to approx. 20,000 in 2020.
\nInstalled domestic capacity is reported to be 13,2 MT in 2016. 9% of chemicals, incl. Bio-fuels are bio-based in the US.
\nThe US have not moved away from their stand on healthcare.
\nWho sits next in the White House is going to be determinant\u00a0for the future of the support programs in\u00a0the bio-based manufacturing sector.
\nConsumption of biodegradable plastics in Europe: Drivers and trends for\u00a02015-2020 (Dr Harald Kaeb, Narocon Innovation Consulting)<\/p>\n
Study just released by NIC, founded in 1998 by Harald Kaeb (kaeb@narocon.de) in partnership with Nova Institute (Study sells for 3,500\u20ac).
\nNo proper market data were available in Europe on the topic. Stakeholders in need of consistent and accurate data, covering all EU countries and all bio-based polymers and resins and the whole spectrum of their applications.
\nGlobal capacity for biodegradable plastics in 2015 : 737.000 tons in 2015, dominated by PET30. Consumption in Europe is confirmed to be the highest of the five continents but closer to 100.000 tons (90-110 kt) than the 350.000 tons erroneouly reported in some studies.
\nCompostable Bags are dominant with around 70.000 tons, marketed as waste management solution (like in Italy for example), pushed by country legislation being gradually passed.
\nSeparate organic waste collection and composting pushed by the EU commission will be a clear incentive if adopted throughout the EU. But we are not there yet.
\nEU policies have no direct effect on market development. Funds available from Horizon 2020 are mainly to support R&D but not the scale-up to commercial size manufacturing.
\nMember states are more active and efficient, as far as waste management is concerned , and specifically the ban of PE shopping bags.
\nPull effect from environment conscious consumers and push effect by brand leaders are also efficient but slow drivers in a money constrained economy.
\nQuestions are raised on whether CO2 based polymers are considered in the study along the plant based polymers. The answer from Michael Carus is \u2018no\u2019 at this stage as the amount of CO2 based polymer is still very small. Could certainly be taken into account in the future
\nHighlights of Nova Institute Research in 2015\/2016 ( Michael Carus)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Bioeconomy in figures\u201d is a study commissionned by the Bio-based industry consortim and released in March 2016.
\nTurnover of the EU bio-economy in 2013 is reported to amount to 1.3 trillion \u20ac of which 600 billion \u20ac for the bio-based economy of which 58 to 60 for chemicals, a bit lower from what it is in the US.
\nDanemark has the highest share of bio-based industry in its GDP amongst members states thanks to Novozymes.
\n\u201cGlobal biomass supply and demand scenarios\u201d is a study released last year by Nova Institute and is available on http:\/\/www.bio-based.eu\/markets.
\nBio-based polymer production is reported to be 2% of total in volume in 2014 for a global turnover of 11bn \u20ac, including bio-based epoxy resins, the volume of which grows steadily year on year as bio-based epichlorydrine from glycerol (eg Epicerol* from Solvay) is cheaper than the petro-based epichlorydrine.
\nThe International Business Directory for Innovative Bio-based Materials edited by Nova Institute is now opened to company profiles over two pages for free.
\nnova has also enlarged\u00a0its range of innovation services for SMEs.
\nCascading use of wood: the smart way to use a natural resource (Jenny Walther-Toss WWF Deutschland)<\/p>\n
Objective of the study recently issued by WWF was to identify and qualify the best practices in cascade manufacturing of wood-based products over 6 countries: Finland, Germany, Poland, Spain, the UK and the US. For the latter, cascading use is not even discussed by the sector and the US were therefore excluded from the scope of the recommandations. None of the investigated countries has a comprehensive policy to support multiple stage cascade manufacturing of wood products. The recommendation of WWF is therefore to work at the EU Commission level on a blanket European Directive to be then pushed to Member States.
\nLatest Market development perspectives of the current bio-based building blocks (Doris de Guzman, editor of the Green Chemicals Blog and senior consultant for Technon Orbichem Ltd)<\/p>\n
Bio-ethylene derivatives: PE and MEG can be obtained by various conversion processes but none of them are actually able to compete with current petro-ethylene prices. Benefits is lower CO2 emission and green branding but premium over petro based ethylene has widened and issue of life remains, as it is not bio-degradable.
\n100% bio-PET: several conversion process routes being pursued: bioparaxylene from alcohols or from biolass based aromatics, FDCA or FDME as alternative to PTA, muconic acid to produce PTA ( the latter at an earlier stage).
\n1.4Butanediol and succinic acid: Novamont and BASF are the only producers of bioBDO based on the Genomatica technology. Bioamber talking about co-building a bio BDO plant with Vinmar using succinic acid from their Ontario plant.
\nBio-based Succinic acid has reached a level of over-capacity as a deterrent gap is currently widening with petro-based maleic anhydride.
\nbio-based epichlorhydrine is the only one remaining cheaper than petrobased epichlorhydrine. However, the market growth perspectives for epichlorhydrine at large remains gloomy.
\nBecause of the price gap widening between drop-in bio-based chemicals and their petro-based equivalent, investor\u2019s interest is shifting towards new plant based chemistry molecules offering new functionnalities valued in new applications.
\nNew bio-based building blocks vs drop-in solutions \u2013 utilizing the full potential of functionalized platform molecules (Dr thomas Farmer, University of York).
\n10% of crude oil is currently used to produce 90% of all organic chemicals being globally produced today.
\nBiorefineries being developed will allow to extract substitute molecules from renewable biomass. As the platform molecules extracted from biomass are very different, the building blocks extracted from these platform molecules require a different chemistry (reduction instead of oxydation ) and will have fundamentally different properties , provided some chemical processing issues are overcome.
\n4 examples are presented: itaconic acid vs maleic acid, bioderived activating and protecting group (p-CYMCl ), Cyrene a bioderived aprotic solvent derived from cellulose vs conventional solvent), FDCA vs Terephtalic acid (TA).
\nThe concept of biomass utilizations efficiency (BUE) developed by the University of York is also rapidly presented as a tool to compare process routes.
\nIn conclusion, drop-in replacement, whilst desired by the industry because of legal constraints (like REACH), will most of the time result into loosing the very attractive functionality of new bio-based building blocks. We should support the SMEs developing the new molecules that will make the chemical products of the future.
\nBio-based content of materials- tools to determine the sustainable sourcing of bio-based materials (Jarno Darkhorst and Harmen Willemse, NEN, Netherlands Standardization Institute)<\/p>\n
The sustainability criteria for the biomass used to make all bio-based products incl. chemicals and fuels is now covered by a EU standard issued as EN 16751-2016.
\nThe NTA 8080 sustainability criteria is specifically explained in details. All operators in the supply chain should be certified to trace origin of biomass used.<\/p>\n
The certification as per NTA8080 is likely to gradually replace other sustainability certifications delivered by private bodies.<\/p>\n
The bio-based content is the fraction of biomass that is part of the content of a product. EN16785-1 specifies a method to determine the bio-based content in products.
\nBiorefineries: trends and highlights of a new generation of bio-product mill (Jukka Kantola, NC partnering and Dr Niklas von Weymarn, Mets\u00e4 Fibre)<\/p>\n
Finland is currently setting-up a novel Bio-refinery system approach based on the past success story of the declining Pulp and Paper industry, on sufficient forest ressources and, last but not least, on the country position and assets in the bioeconomy. Bioeconomy in Finland account for 6.4 billion \u20ac in the GDP.
\nSeveral biorefineries are under development in Finland. Presentation focuses on the KaiCell Fibers and the Mets\u00e4 Fibre ones.<\/p>\n
Thermochemical process and biochemical process both require dry biomass as input, which is not corresponding to the state of products extracted from forests. Therefore Chemical process such as the Kraft process mastered by the Pulp and Paper industry is still considered to be the most advisable one for the KaiCell Fibers project. However final choice of technology is still pending and additional investors are welcome.<\/p>\n
The Mets\u00e4 Fibre Oy project is to transform one of its four paper mills ( the oldest one in \u00c4\u00c4nekoski) into a \u201cbioproduct mill.\u201d A 1.2 bn \u20ac investment has been decided in 2015 for a new mill with an annual production of 1.3 million tons of Pulp using 6.5 million cubic meters of wood annually. The side stream of a pulp mill is about 50% of the input weight. The new bioproduct mill will still use the Kraft fractionation process and will focus on valorizing the side streams: biogas with sludge, energy from bark and wood dust, bioproducts from lignin (pretty much non functional after the Kraft extraction process as we know) and new textile fibers from cellulose. Prospect is to have other bio-products than pulp represent 20% of the mill output.<\/p>\n
Start-up is planned for Q3\/2017. It will also produce 1.8 MWh of electricity.
\nThe Kraft technology was considered to be the only one on the table at no risk for this scale of production. Any other novel fractionation technology was deemed not mature enough and too risky for an investment representing 20% of the total turnover of the Mets\u00e4 group, the biggest one it ever made (40% on its own resources and the rest supported by loans from the EIB)<\/p>\n
Final part of day 1 is devoted to the presentation of the products in final competition to receive the innovation award \u201cBio-based material of the year 2016\u201d ( Please refer to the article dated March 2,2 016 on this blog presenting the finalists). The vote from the participants takes place following the presentation and the announcement of the winner will be made during the gala dinner.<\/p>\n