GREEN CHEMICALS

And the finalists...

FEATURE P25 BIOPLASTICS CLAY BOSWELL NEW YORK

Metabolix partners with Antibioticos for PHA

Metabolix aims to produce 10,000 tonnes/year of bioplastics in a toll-manufacturing deal
A new production agreement with Spanish fermentation specialist Antibioticos puts US-based Metabolix back on track to scale up production of its bioplastic Mirel. Metabolix has signed a letter of intent with Antibioticos for the production of its polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) resin trademarked Mirel at its manufacturing facility in Leon, Spain. The partners will rst conduct validation runs on productionscale equipment at Antibioticos. They plan to enter into a denitive contract manufacturing agreement based on the validation runs and economic/engineering feasibility studies. Metabolix expects commercial supply to begin in 2013. The Antibioticos site really offered the fastest way to get back in business, said Metabolix chief scientic ofcer Oliver Peoples. They have a very high-quality group of people at Antibioticos and quite a lot of equipment and facilities in place that could be giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) backed out of Telles, the joint venture that was to market Mirel, citing that the market did not grow as quickly as expected.

GREEN CHEMICALS PETCHEMS IN BRIEF BRIEF

RHODIA, COBALT TECH TWO DECK HEADING IN TWO DECK HEADING BIO-BUTANOL FACILITY
US bio-butanol NIB. 275 Cobalt 50 words for a developer words Technologies and its partner, for a full column of NIBs includFrance-based ing headline specialty chemical firm Rhodia, will build and operate a bio-based n-butanol demonstration plant in Brazil, which is expected to start up by mid2013. Butanol is widely used as an industrial chemical found in paints, adhesives, inks and other solvents. The facility will use sugarcane bagasse for feedstock. According to Cobalt Technologies, the demonstration fermenter will be 1/10 the size of a commercial fermenter.

Metabolix sees growth in their Mirel PHA plastic used for Mirel production. That was a large part of the decisionmaking process. Metabolix aims initially to produce 10,000 tonnes/year through Antibioticos, a scale sufcient to supply existing customers, while continuing to develop the market. Early this year, Metabolix was forced to nd a new manufacturing partner after US agribusiness

WORTHY VENTURE ADM was to have produced Mirel at a new 50,000 tonne/year (110m lb/year) unit in Clinton, Iowa, US. Metabolix already has 5m lbs of Mirel in inventory produced by ADM. Although ADMs exit was very painful, Peoples said, the partnership was benecial. The education and learning we got in the relationship with ADM about scaling the manufacturing technology, about the level of interest and the challenge in the marketplace really put us in a very good spot, he said. I think it would have been better to have a smaller plan, but Im not sure wed have had the same degree of learning, nor am I sure we would have been able to afford the learning on our own.

EVONIK PARTNERS WITH BIOAMBER ON CATALYSTS

US renewable chemical producer BioAmber has partnered with Germany-based Evonik Industries catalysts business for the long-term development and manufacturing of catalysts for making 1,4-butanediol (BDO), tetrahydrofuran (THF), and gamma butyrolactone (GBL) from bio-based succinic acid. The companies said they have started to develop a new generation of BDO catalysts. BDO, THF and GBL are used in applications including polymers, paints, adhesives and solvents. The global market for these products currently made from petrochemicals is $4bn.

BUTANEDIOL DORIS DE GUZMAN NEW YORK

Genomatica withdraws IPO on weak market

US renewable chemicals developer Genomatica has withdrawn its $100m (82m) initial public offering (IPO) on August 2 because of the weak market and changes in its business strategies. The company registered its IPO with the US Security and Exchange Commission in August last year. The withdrawal of the IPO comes from a number of different factors, said chief executive Christophe Schilling, in an interview with ICIS. In this current market environment, it is more advantageous for us to choose private nancing as it will give us better opportunity to demonstrate our technology and differentiate our business model, Schilling said.
www.icis.com

Genomatica plans to focus more on licensing its technology as opposed to operating assets, he said. We are positioning ourselves to offer process technologies not to become a producer of chemicals, Schilling said.

IPO STILL A POSSIBILITY Despite the change in plans, Schilling noted the possibility of an IPO as the company moves forward. Genomatica said it has raised $41.5m in private nancing from new investor and partner Versalis, the chemical business of Italybased Eni, and existing investors Alloy Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mohr Davidow Ventures, TPG Biotech, VantagePoint Capital Partners and Waste Management.

The $41.5m nancing will be used partly for the commercialization of the companys bio-based 1,4 butanediol (BDO) technology and the expansion of the companys portfolio, including the newly announced bio-based butadiene (BD) development with Versalis and Italian bioplastic producer Novamont. Genomatica said the technology under this partnership will not use the 1,4 BDO route to produce biobased BD. Schilling said: Genomatica has multiple technologies it is developing to produce butadiene. You can use 1,4 BDO and weve done that in the laboratory, but we think that there are number of different ways to produce biobutadiene that will make a lot more economical sense.

GOODYEAR USES SOYBEAN OIL IN TIRES

US-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has been testing the use of soybean oil in rubber compounds for tire manufacture at its plant in Lawton, Oklahoma. The company said the soybean oil can potentially increase the tread life of a tire by 10%, and reduce its petroleum-based oil use by up to 7m gal/year. The soy oil-based rubber compounds blend more easily with the silica used in building tires, according to Goodyear. The company expects consumers to purchase tires made with soy oil as early as 2015.

August 13-26, 2012 | ICIS Chemical Business | 21