Pro­duc­tion Capa­cit­ies for Bio-based Poly­mers in Europe — Status Quo and Trends towards 2020

The European mar­ket data presents the latest find­ings of pro­duc­tion capa­cit­ies of bio-based poly­mers in Europe based on the mar­ket study pub­lished by the nova-Insti­tute in spring this year and its con­tinu­ously updated data­base. The ​“Bio-based Poly­mers Pro­du­cer Data­base” shows that Europe’s situ­ation in pro­du­cing bio-based poly­mers is lim­ited to just a few poly­mers. Europe has so far estab­lished a sol­id pos­i­tion mainly in the field of starch blends (blends of poly­mers with nat­ive starch or ther­mo­plastic starch) and it is expec­ted to remain strong in this sec­tor for the next few years (see fig­ure). Nev­er­the­less, new devel­op­ments and invest­ments are fore­seen in Europe: some years after the install­a­tion of indus­tri­al scale PLA capa­cit­ies in North Amer­ica and Asia, the first European indus­tri­al-scale PLA plant is sched­uled to become oper­a­tion­al in 2014. PET pro­duc­tion is grow­ing world­wide, largely due to the Plant PET Tech­no­logy Col­lab­or­at­ive (PTC) ini­ti­at­ive, whose glob­al value chain devel­op­ment will lead to the intro­duc­tion of future pro­duc­tion facil­it­ies in Europe by 2015. One note­worthy find­ing of oth­er stud­ies is that Europe shows the strongest demand for biobased poly­mers, while pro­duc­tion tends to take place else­where, namely in Asia and South Amer­ica. The bio-based poly­mer pro­duc­tion facil­it­ies for PLA and PHA loc­ated in Europe are cur­rently rather small, and although there are next to no pro­duc­tion capa­city fig­ures for the lat­ter, sev­er­al pilot plants are already oper­at­ing. On the oth­er hand, bio-based PUR and PA pro­duc­tion has gradu­ally taken off in Europe and is likely to remain stable in order to sup­ply the grow­ing mar­kets on the build­ing and con­struc­tion and auto­mot­ive sec­tors. Europe does host indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion facil­it­ies for PBAT (shown in fig­ure). Although still fully fossil­based, PBAT is expec­ted to be increas­ingly bio-based reach­ing shares of 50% by 2020, to judge by industry announce­ments and the capa­city devel­op­ment of its bio-based pre­curs­ors. Also for PBT (see table) recent devel­op­ments in the pro­duc­tion of bio-based 1.4 buta­ne­di­ol (BDO) have proven that the bio-based route to the poly­mer is com­mer­cially feas­ible and its pro­duc­tion is planned to have star­ted by 2020 (date not dis­closed yet). With lead­ing chem­ic­al cor­por­a­tions, Europe has a par­tic­u­lar strength and great poten­tial in the fields of high-value fine chem­ic­als and build­ing blocks for the pro­duc­tion of PA, PUR and ther­mosets among oth­ers. How­ever, only few spe­cif­ic, large-scale plans for bio-based build­ing blocks with con­crete plans for the pro­duc­tion of bio-based poly­mers have been announced to date.

EU: No ded­ic­ated policies to pro­mote bio-based polymers

The European Union’s rel­at­ively weak pos­i­tion in the pro­duc­tion of bio-based poly­mers is largely the con­sequence of an unfa­vour­able polit­ic­al frame­work. In con­trast to bio­fuels, there is no European policy frame­work to sup­port bio-based poly­mers, where­as bio­fuels receive strong and ongo­ing sup­port dur­ing com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion (quotas, tax incent­ives, green elec­tri­city reg­u­la­tions and mar­ket intro­duc­tion pro­grammes, etc.). Without com­par­able sup­port, bio-based chem­ic­als and poly­mers will suf­fer fur­ther from under­in­vest­ment by the private sec­tor. It is cur­rently much more attract­ive and safe to invest in bio-based poly­mers in Asia, South Amer­ica and North Amer­ica.

About nova-Insti­tute

The nova-Insti­tute was foun­ded as a private and inde­pend­ent insti­tute in 1994. It is loc­ated in the Chem­ic­al Park Knap­sack in Hürth, which lies at the heart of the chem­ic­al industry around Cologne (Ger­many). For over 19 years now, the nova-Insti­tute offers research and con­sultancy with a focus on bio-based and CO2-based eco­nomy. nova-Insti­tute has been glob­ally act­ive in feed­stock sup­ply, techno-eco­nom­ic and envir­on­ment­al eval­u­ation, mar­ket research, dis­sem­in­a­tion, pro­ject man­age­ment and policy for a sus­tain­able bio-based eco­nomy. More inform­a­tion about all ser­vices of the nova-Insti­tute at www​.bio​-based​.eu Source: nova-Insti­tut GmbH