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 [...]

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 [...]

World’s Biggest Biodiesel Plant Starts Up
Neste Oil starts up the world’s largest renewable diesel plant in Singapore which has an annual capacity of 800,000 tons. According to Neste’s information the construction costs were around US$ 550 million. The plant was completed on-schedule as well as on-budget. “We are very proud of the new plant and the NExBTL technology behind it, [...]

Bioplastics Gather Momentum
While gaining much attraction from media, the bioplastic – market is still in its infancy. Biomass derived plastics currently make up about 0.2% of the roughly estimated 350 million tons of plastics consumed annually. But that volume will grow 30% a year due to the rising demand of environmentally friendly substitutions for packaging and products [...]

Do Algae biofuels need 10 more years of R&D to compete?
According to the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California at Berkeley the algae biofuels industry is still in its infancy. The Institute published a survey of the state of industrial algae fuel production. Current commercial biomass production from algae is mostly restricted to nutritional products. The authors state: “Despite the scores, if not [...]

Beat the Crisis: Invest in Sustainability
Just a few months ago the European Bioplastic Association made a poll among their members regarding green investments. Many companies reported a healthy growth in 2009. Their expectations were fulfilled and sometimes exceeded! 47% of the polled companies, almost the half, reported growth in turnover, 38% could draw level and just 10% reported losses. Generally, [...]