Solvay announced that its Thai affiliate Vinythai has successfully commissioned its world-class bio-sourced Epichlorohydrin plant based on Solvay’s innovative Epicerol® technology in Map Ta Phut, Thailand. The Epicerol® technology is based on the transformation of glycerin obtained as by-product from refining vegetable oils into biofuel. This technology is protected by 1000 patent titles, some of [...]

World’s first continuous algae-breeding facility starts operation on a commercial scale
Recently, Vattenfall, the largest thermal energy suppliers in Europe, celebrated the opening of a commercial algae-breeding facility at their premises in Senftenberg (Brandenburg), Germany. The facility, supplied by the Austrian company ecoduna, will use CO2 from the nearby power station, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. Vattenfall has been running tests on the reduction of CO2 through [...]

The 100 Billion Dollar Business of Green Chemistry
A recently published study about Green Chemistry anticipates dramatic growth rates for green chemicals during the coming decade. According to this report from Pike Research, Green Chemistry represents a market opportunity that will grow from 2.8 billion US$ in 2011 to approximately 100 billion US$ by 2020. “Green chemistry markets are currently nascent, with many [...]

Bio – Isobutanol on the Large Scale
It’s been a while since I posted an article. I’ve been busy with my own CleanChem Startup. But here is some news that you should know about. Do you remember? The InnovativeIndustry.net blog previously published an article about biobutanol. Now, one of the companies mentioned therein – in particular Gevo – announced to enter a [...]

The Lactic Acid Big Business
As mentioned several times in previous articles, polylactic acid (PLA) is the most promising bioplastic. So I felt it was time to contribute an article to the current market situation of PLA and its monomer lactic acid. Lactic acid has a variety of applications in the food and beverage sector as a preservative. It is [...]

Biobutanol Enters the Biofuel Stage
According to estimation from DuPont the biofuel industry worldwide will grow from a $50 billion opportunity today to a $75 billion opportunity by 2015. Besides the already well known biodiesel and bioethanol a further promising biofuel is on the rise. Biobutanol! While being currently used as an industrial solvent and mostly produced via petrochemical processing, [...]

BioSuccinic Acid: Rising Bioplastic and Feedstock for Green Chemicals
Since the global demand for green chemicals increases, succinic acid revealed its large potential for a variety of applications. This dicarboxylic acid can be converted to a huge amount of different green chemicals of industrial value. The market for succinic acid is estimated at €2.5 billion (and rising), with uses in products such as antifreeze [...]

From Glycerol to Green Chemicals Part 2
Read the first part of this article As promised a few days ago I hereby publish the second part of the article: From Glycerine to Green Chemicals. If you haven’t read the first part, it’s highly recommended to do so. Propylene Glycol Archer Daniels Midland (US), one of the largest agricultural processors in the world, [...]

From Glycerine to Green Chemicals Part 1
Guess what?! There is still a lot to know about what to do with the increasing amount of generated glycerol (also glycerine, glycerin) obtained by biodiesel production. Besides the well established sell of purified glycerine to manufacturers of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals a variety of novel conversion techniques are introduced. This article is intended to be [...]

Bioplastics Go Commercial: Green Polypropylene From Sugarcane
Back in 2008, the Brazil based company Braskem announced the production of the first polypropylene made 100% from renewable resources, which was verified in accordance with ASTM D6866. Now the company is going to build a commercial propylene plant using sugar cane as feedstock. Operational start up is planed for 2013. The green propylene production [...]