by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) World’s #1 chemical company to produce renewable Butanediol using Genomatica’s process. The Digest has a one-on-one with Genomatica CEO Christophe Schilling to explore the deal in-depth.
In Germany, BASF announced that it plans to begin production of 1,4-butanediol based on renewable feedstock (renewable BDO) using Genomatica’s patented process. The one-step fermentation process is based on sugars as a renewable feedstock.
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In addition to being the leading chemical company, BASF is the largest global producer of BDO.
BDO and its derivatives are widely used for producing plastics, solvents, electronic chemicals and elastic fibers. The starting materials for the production of conventional BDO are natural gas, butane, butadiene and propylene. BASF currently produces BDO and BDO-equivalents at its sites in Ludwigshafen, Germany; Geismar, Louisiana; Chiba, Japan; Kuantan, Malaysia; and Caojing, China, and has an annual capacity of 535,000 metric tons. BASF has recently announced the intention of building a BDO complex in China with a capacity of 100,000 annual metric tons.
Next steps
Under the terms of the agreement, Genomatica will continue to advance its patented renewable BDO production process technology based on sugars while BASF will produce renewable BDO, which will be available in the second half of 2013 for sampling and trials.
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CS: We tend to use the term “exact same” instead of drop in, because drop-in can mean different things to different people. Some people said, for example, that ethanol is a drop-in because it can be dropped in to existing infrastructure up to a certain blend. And there’s a line of thinking that succinic is a drop-in, for example, where it can replace adipic.
“Exact same” is critical, we think. That’s been very clearly demonstrated with BDO, where we have tried to show that our BDO could be used in the same exact way — for example, to make all the major derivatives that BDO is used for. So, PBT made with our BDO is an exact equivalent, as we saw with the Toray announcement recently, and that’s critical when you are talking about potential market size.
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CS: A lot of people in the industry love the space. We wake up, eat, breathe and sleep the story. But a lot of talent we will ultimately need to bring in don;t operate with that kind of enthusiasm for the space. For example, someone used to licensing petrochemical technology, and doing it for a long time. For them, we’ve got to demonstrate that the technology is going to work. So, these milestones go a long way to help bring those that are new to the field — intrigued, perhaps, but saying “provide me comfort”. When the #1 company steps up and says they’ll be producing, it’s a big statement. READ MORE and MORE (BASF)
