A failed Sarnia bioplastics plant has been resurrected and is once again turning Ontario corn syrup into a key ingredient of biodegradable plastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BioAmber was the flagship for a cluster of fledgling bio-based \u201cgreen\u201d companies in Sarnia before it declared bankruptcy and ceased operations in 2018, leaving 60 people unemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After buying the plant and investing millions, LCY Biosciences Inc. is today producing more succinic acid than its predecessor did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is increasingly in demand all over the world, simply because every country recognizes that single-use plastic is a very big issue,\u201d said LCY general manager Dex Hsu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBiodegradable material made from succinic acid will be one of the solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BioAmber was making 8,000 tonnes of succinic acid annually. Today LCY, which is headquartered in Taiwan, is producing 18,000 tonnes and the goal is to hit 30,000 tonnes by 2023, Hsu told The Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Vidal Street plant has also launched a nutraceutical line that\u2019s making health-related products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLCY Group (has been) a chemical company for more than 50 years. We have a lot of experience in mass production and commercialization,\u201d Hsu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Succinic acid is made using fermentation and genetically modified yeast, a process not unlike that used in breweries, he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process is cleaner and more eco-friendly than traditional petrochemical refining, and it generates no harmful volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The local plant exports 98% of its succinic acid to foreign markets. The white, sugar-like powder is converted into a biodegradable polymer used in food packaging \u2013 including the lining inside paper cups \u2013 which breaks down easily in landfills, Hsu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The polymer is made is Asia for markets in Europe, where governments are increasingly limiting single-use plastics, Hsu explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LCY is also using fermentation to make \u201ccarotenoids,\u201d the group of pigments that give the characteristic colour to carrots and pumpkins. Beta-carotene, which the body converts to Vitamin A, is used in food, nutrition products, cosmetics, and animal feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carotenoids are highly sought after for instant noodles in Asian markets and give the product its orange colour, Hsu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a trend. I see a lot of colleges and universities actually looking into these kinds of renewable technologies. They want to use fermentation to produce a lot of chemicals,\u201d Hsu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LCY\u2019s Sarnia plant currently has 51 employees, mostly engineers and operators, and it\u2019s working on plans to expand in the Chemical Valley, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A failed Sarnia bioplastics plant has been resurrected and is once again turning Ontario corn syrup into a key ingredient of biodegradable plastics. BioAmber was the flagship for a cluster of fledgling bio-based \u201cgreen\u201d companies in Sarnia before it declared bankruptcy and ceased operations in 2018, leaving 60 people unemployed. After buying the plant and […]<\/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":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"After buying the plant of the BioAmber bancruptcy and investing millions, LCY Biosciences Inc. is today producing more succinic acid than its predecessor did","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11270,5838,10408,11966],"supplier":[],"class_list":["post-94577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biodegradability","tag-bioeconomy","tag-greenchemistry","tag-plastics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94577","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=94577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94577"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=94577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}