If forced to guess in a game of Balderdash, the average citizen might well describe Brontide as a detergent used by the Flintstones back in Bedrock City, right up there name-wise with the BrontoBurger \u2014 a memorable chemical indeed it is, but not that one. It\u2019s the marketing name for Genomatica\u2019s butylene glycol, and 21 trucks rolled out from a (Novamont) contracted manufacturing site with 600 tons of the stuff the other day. And therein lies another striking chapter, and a victory, in the story of the advanced bioeconomy.<\/p>\n
BG, as the molecule is generally known amongst the formulator community, is one of the linchpins of the personal care and cosmetic industries \u2014 in fact, more than 250 formulators have evaluated Brontide for use in their products to date, which gives you a sense of the breadth of its appeal. The overall market is smallish in volume \u2014 the 600 tons Genomatica just made represent as much as 1-2 percent of overall global demand. But BG goes at a good price because it\u2019s actually somewhat difficult to make BG from petroleum, and despite the demand for safe, clean ingredients, no one hitherto had come up with an affordable way to make BG from renewable sources.<\/p>\n
The Brontide clean product story
\nAccordingly, Brontide has 50% lower global warming potential than conventional butylene glycol, according to an independent, comprehensive lifecycle analysis (LCA). A summary of the LCA study was featured in the November 2018 issue of SOFW Journal, a publication targeting personal care and home care product formulators. That\u2019s why the interest has been strong since Brontide was first discussed and since sample-sized shipments commenced in 2017 when Genomatica made 12 tons in a demonstration run and to seed the market with samples and provide product for the certifications process.<\/p>\n
The shipments
\nUltimately, Daicel (Japan) Azelis (EU), and Viachem signed on as distributors, and Genomatica has now commenced commercial-scale production. Genomatica will also be making direct sales in the EU and in North America. One third of this original production run has already been sold, and the stocks are not expected to last long. To request a product sample or learn more, contact Genomatica at Brontide@genomatica.com and visit www.brontidebg.com.<\/p>\n
A story about Values
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been kind of exciting,\u201d Genomatica\u2019s senior vice president, Specialty Chemicals, Damien Perriman told the Digest. \u201cHere we are connecting around values, and that\u2019s something different than other products and partnerships. In the past two years, in all the conversations we have had in the personal care industry, not one person has asked us how competitive we are with oil. It\u2019s not in the mindset, because the conversations are about performance and the value set. In this journey into personal care, we\u2019ve been exploring why do people want natural ingredients, and how do we communicate to each other about that. Is it non-GMO, is it organic, how safe is it \u2014 these are the questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shift in value sets by product type
\n\u201cThe values someone has govern how they engage with the supply chain,\u201d Perriman added, \u201cfor example, like someone who hates plastic waste in the ocean, these people have this desire to use materials in a closed loop. We see it in plastics and packaging, where there is this movement against single-use plastics, and to reduce ocean waste. These are values that the downstream customer hold, and [our collective job is to understand] how those values influence their decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn personal care, where you are applying the product to your face, the value of safety [becomes paramount], and they look for things in their supply chain,\u201d said Perriman. \u201cAnd when they are looking at products on the shelf they are looking on their cell phones and looking at those ingredients \u2014 and they are asking, are these good ones or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the value set for personal care doesn\u2019t so much demand a closed loop but would be focused, for instance, on natural ingredients, safety, not having heavy metals,\u201d said Perriman.<\/p>\n
Getting to the front of the label
\nFor now, the INCI registry determines how products get labeled, and no matter what the value-set for Brontide and for this renewably sourced BG, it\u2019s going to be called butylene glycol on the back of the label and the chances of changing that any time soon are almost zero. It\u2019s going to be one of a long list of chemicals that most people have no idea what they are, and butylene glycol \u201csounds chemical\u201d and to a section of the public that \u201csounds bad\u201d.<\/p>\n
One opportunity for renewables and natural ingredients is to help simplify the back of the label by making molecules that are more broadly functional, so you need fewer of them. A shorter list of ingredients that more people are more familiar with \u2014 that\u2019s a step forward, and offers a place not only for renewables as a class but Genomatica\u2019s butylene glycol, which can work as an emollient but also in other roles in the formulation.<\/p>\n
But the back of the label doesn\u2019t really get into the sourcing of any particular chemical \u2014 what\u2019s \u201cchemical\u201d and what\u2019s \u201cnatural\u201d. The battleground between the supply chain of old and the supply chain of the future, for some time to come, may well be fought on the front of the label. Sustainability scoring, performance attributes, the clean and natural source that renewably made sugars represent.<\/p>\n
Worrisome in this? Consumers are not often connecting with science, but rather with influence groups.<\/p>\n
For Genomatica, look for more of these types of molecules.<\/p>\n
For a smaller company with a core competency in process development, BG represents the future in many ways \u2014 the identification of niches where the company can bring forward candidate molecules where the volumes are attractive, and there\u2019s a real supply chain problem that causes a disconnect with the customers\u2019 value set and which can be solved using biotechnology.<\/p>\n
Consider these break points in the supply chain \u2014 potential disruptors \u2014 and now that Genomatica has built a marketing engine that understands how to move material and moves quickly enough from R&D to seeding and then commercial-scale production, and communicating performance and values \u2014 look for more break points to be explored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If forced to guess in a game of Balderdash, the average citizen might well describe Brontide as a detergent used by the Flintstones back in Bedrock City, right up there name-wise with the BrontoBurger \u2014 a memorable chemical indeed it is, but not that one. It\u2019s the marketing name for Genomatica\u2019s butylene glycol, and 21 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,10408],"supplier":[2414],"class_list":["post-61456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-greenchemistry","supplier-genomatica-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61456"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=61456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}