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www.icis.com10 | ICIS Chemical Business | August 29-September 4, 2011

“There is a practical need for bio-based chemicals, especially in Japan”SHIGERU HANDAGeneral manager, Sustainable Resources Business Development, MCC

biomass materials, we believe there is a huge potential for bio-based chemicals and bioplastics in Asia, and we would like to ex-plore every opportunity here.”

PMBC formed a supply part-nership in April with US com-panies BioAm-ber for bio-based succinic acid produc-tion in Rayong, and Genom-

atica for bio-based BDO produc-tion. MCC’s main interest in biosuccinic acid is its competi-tiveness as a raw material for its polybutylene succinate business, said Handa.

The bio-polybutylene succinate plant will use 15,000 tonnes/year of biosuccinic acid starting in 2015. The UK’s National Centre for Biorenewable Energy, Fuels and Materials estimates current global biosuccinic acid produc-tion at 16,000–30,000 tonnes/year. Succinic acid pricing is estimated at $2,000–3,000/tonne.

“Biosuccinic acid today is not

Japan-based Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (MCC) is expanding its product portfolio and feedstock sources with renewable-based options through partnerships and joint ventures this year.

In late April, MCC formed a 50:50 joint venture (JV) called PTT MCC Biochem Company (PMBC) with Thailand-based industrial conglomerate PTT to develop and produce sugar-derived polybuty-lene succinate, a biodegradable aliphatic polyester with similar properties to polyethylene (PE). Major applications for polybuty-lene succinate are mulch films, packaging films, bags and flushable hygiene products.

MCC produces and markets polybutylene succinate in its 3,000 tonne/year Japan plant under the trademark GS Pla using petroleum-derived succinic acid and butane-diol (BDO) as feedstock. The JV not only aims to establish and develop a polybutylene succinate market worldwide, but also to build a polybutylene succinate production chain using renewable based suc-cinic acid and BDO, said Shigeru Handa, general manager of the Sus-tainable Resources Business Devel-opment department at MCC’s pet-rochemicals R&D division.

An industry source estimates the current polybutylene succi-nate and derivatives market at 100,000–120,000 tonnes/year. Modified polybutylene succinate polymers such as those being blended with polylactic acid (PLA) or starch are now available in the market.

BIO-BASED CHEMS WANTEDPMBC will build a 20,000 tonne/year bio-polybutylene succinate plant in Rayong, Thailand, which is expected to start in 2015.

“We see increasing demand for GS Pla, and we are even thinking that maybe the 20,000 tonne ca-pacity will be too small,” said Handa. “Considering Asia’s rich

yet as cost-competitive as petrole-um-based succinic acid because of current production of scale,” Handa said. “We believe that with the improvements in com-bined technology of BioAmber and MCC, the growth of biosuc-cinic acid will provide a scale large enough to be more competi-tive than petro-based products.”

MCC did not disclose PMBC’s expected consumption for bio-BDO, nor a timeline for when Genomatica will start producing bio-BDO for its use. “When it comes to bio-BDO, Genomatica has its own plans for the foresee-able future but we prefer to have a facility in Asia,” said Handa.

IN THE BIO PIPELINEAside from GS Pla, MCC’s current bio-based lineup includes an en-gineering plastic trademarked DURABIO made from sugar-based isosorbide monomers.

MCC produces DURABIO at a 300 tonne/year pilot plant in Ku-rosaki and plans to scale up to commercial quantities in a couple of years at a plant that will also be located in Japan, said Handa.

He said DURABIO possesses the better transparency of polycar-bonate (PC) and the better impact resistance of polymethyl methacr-ylate (PMMA). France-based starch derivatives company Roquette sup-plies the isosorbide feedstock.

MCC offered two grades of DU-RABIO in the first quarter this year for customer testing. The bi-

RENEWABLES DORIS DE GUZMAN NEW YORK

MCC invests in renewablesMitsubishi Chemical expands its portfolio of bio-based chemicals through partnerships

Follow bio-based projects at ICIS plants and projects. www.icis.com/plants-and-projects

oresins are used for optical/trans-parent applications.

“We were looking for alterna-tive monomer to PC mostly to ob-tain a different property than that of the existing PC. What we found was an improved property of PC which happens to be biodegrada-ble at the same time,” said Handa.

MCC also has plans to replace some of its basic raw materials such as C3 and C4 with renewa-ble-based alternatives.

“In this case, we will be able to drop in the bio-based basic chemi-cals into our existing derivatives production processes,” said Handa. “We are also seeking possibilities of producing downstream chemi-cals straight from sugar.” He cited as an example MCC’s partnership with Genomatica to establish the first bio-BDO plant in Asia.

The main driver for going the biobased route is to reduce costs, noted Handa.

“There is a practical need for bio-based chemicals, especially in Japan, which is importing most of its petroleum-based raw mate-rials,” said Handa. “Considering that oil producing countries are now intensively entering the Asian market and that oil price is stuck at a high level, we think that having an alternative source is necessary and that biobased chemicals would provide an op-portunity to maintain growth.”

MCC parent company Mitsubi-shi Chemical Holding Corp (MCHC) positioned sustainable resources as one of its six core fu-ture businesses under a five-year midterm management plan an-nounced in December 2010.

Under the plan, MCHC also started implementing a concept called KAITEKI, which identifies sustainability, health and comfort as the decision criteria of its cor-porate activities.

PTT MCC Biochem joint venture launched this year in Thailand