Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, officially opened its new Group Biotechnology Research Center in Planegg near Munich last Thursday. In a ceremony attended by Ilse Aigner, the Bavarian Minister for Economic Affairs, Media, Energy and Technology, the key to the facility was symbolically handed over to CEO Hariolf Kottmann and the Head of Clariant’s Group Biotechnology André Koltermann.
The industrial enzymes market is growing with increase in the applications of industrial enzymes. The industrial enzymes market was valued at USD 4.2 billion in 2014 and is projected to reach USD 6.2 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 7.0% from 2015 to 2020. To say this is a new report published by ReportLinker, a market research company headquartered in France.
“A biobased economy starts from the feedstock and ends at the consumer, and the processing is just the middle: we need thus to tackle the 3 steps if we really want to call it “economy”. Also, we need to bring new technologies regardless of where they come from. Brazil for example may be thought of a place of soccer and samba but the hard fact is that it is the only economy in the world which uses biofuels widely. We should study examples such as that, bring them to Europe, and stop thinking we have the answers, but the H2020 rules basically forbid that, as we found out ourselves”. To say this – in this exclusive interview with Il Bioeconomista – is Al Costa, Ceo of Alkol Biotech, a Spanish genetic engineering company focused on the research of new crops.
With Costa we talk about crops, the role of farmers and the policies to support the bioeconomy.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
Solvay, Cardolite Corporation and SHD Composite Materials Ltd are supporting the Punch Powertrain Solar Team from the University of Leuven in building the Punch One, a Belgian solar car based on bio-based resins.
The Punch One, that will run the Solar Challenge in Australia in October, is produced with carbon fiber prepregs impregnated with Epicerol®-based BisA epoxy and cured with a hardener based on cashew nutshell liquid (CNSL), a natural renewable chemical raw material.
“EPA is proposing to change the rules in the middle of the game.” The representatives of advanced and cellulosic biofuels industry – a nonprofit educational organization advocates for the adoption of advanced biofuels as an energy security, military flexibility, economic development and climate change mitigation/pollution control solution – recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel standard (RFS) volume requirement proposal.
In the letter it was emphasized that the May 29th proposal represents a broken promise that is negatively impacting investments and partnerships in advanced biofuels, is sending projects and jobs overseas, and is at odds with the president’s initiatives to combat climate change.
BASF and Genomatica have expanded the scope of their license agreement for the production of 1,4-butanediol based on renewable feedstock (renewable BDO) using Genomatica’s patented process. The parties added certain countries in Southeast Asia to their initial agreement, which focused on North America.
Researchers from the Cardiff Catalysis Institute have devised a way of increasing the yield of biodiesel by using the waste left over from its production process.
Using simple catalysis, the researchers have been able to recycle a non-desired by-product produced when biodiesel is formed from vegetable oil, and convert this into an ingredient to produce even more biodiesel.
Bio-on and Moore Capital signed a license agreement to build the first Brazil-based facility to produce PHAs bioplastic from sugar cane co-products.
The two companies, operating in sustainable biochemistry and in the development of eco-sustainable industrial solutions, will work together to build a production site with a 10 thousand tons/year output, in the state of São Paulo and/or Acre State.
Novamont presented last Friday in Milan its new brand identity, in order to enhance and aligning the corporate image of the group.
“We believe that the future of chemistry is bio-based and that levulinic acid is the next big platform chemical. This is driven by the need to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our dependency on fossil-based feedstock. Oil reserves are also limited. This is nothing new, more a question of when we will be forced to move away from oil. Rather than wait and see, we prefer to be pioneers of the emerging bioeconomy bringing bio-based solutions like levulinic acid and its derivatives to the market”. Marcel van Berkel, Chief Commercial Officer of GFBiochemicals, talks to Il Bioeconomista.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
IL BIOECONOMISTA 