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This researcher believes that commercially successful bio-based products will be found at the corner of volume and value.
It seems there’s no end to the ways that plant-based feedstocks can potentially challenge those of petroleum. From power to fuel to chemicals and more, bio-based products can compete with conventional petroleum-derived products on many levels.
That’s why big-league research players, like Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle, are hard at work in this area. With 22,000 employees in 130 locations globally, Battelle is considered to be the largest independent R&D organization in the world.
“We’ve been pretty active in the field for many years,” says Dr. Bhima Vijayendran, a researcher with Battelle located in San Diego, Calif. “We are looking at economically viable ways of replacing petroleum in various types of end uses. These include fuels, power, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.”
Wanted: high value, high volume
Dr. Vijayendran was one of the featured speakers at LiPRA’s Bio-Based Chemical Symposium held in Edmonton on September 28, 2011. As he sees it, just because bio-based feedstocks could challenge petroleum in this broad spectrum of applications, that doesn’t mean it’ll happen. Some opportunities are more promising than others.
Which applications offer the best prospects for commercial adoption of bio-based products? Dr. Vijayendran believes the sweet spot is where value and volume meet.
“Consider something like putting woodchips in a boiler to produce power,” he explains. “There may be lots of wood chips around, but the value of what you’re producing is very small.”
The next stop on the bio-based value chain is bio-fuels. The volume is beyond dispute: globally, liquid fuel applications use up 85 million barrels of oil each day. The issue here is value. With a newly built bio-refinery costing upwards of $1 billion, Dr. Vijayendran suggests the volume/value equation won’t easily work.
If you keep heading along the value chain, the next stop is chemical applications such as plastics and polymers. This area seems to combine higher volume and higher value in a commercially attractive way. Still, when it comes to value, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals promise even more.
“If you look at the value of producing power from wood chips in a boiler, think of that value as a 1,” he says. “If you look at biodiesel, that’s a 2. Plastics and polymers might fall between six and 10 on this scale. Something like pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals literally could be in the hundreds. They may have a very small volume, but they have a tremendously high value.”
Focus on chemicals
In Dr. Vijayendran’s analysis, then, the area that best combines volume and value for bio-based feedstocks is chemicals.
“You’re looking at a $100 million to $200 million investment for a chemical plant,” he says. “But in chemicals, in terms of making polymers and plastics, big and small companies are getting very comfortable with that space. The technology is there, the markets are there.”
Increasingly, Battelle is there too. The organization is focused on first-generation bioproducts -- taking canola, soy and palm oils or meal, and converting these feedstocks through a thermochemical process to create high-value products. These include polyoils, home appliance coatings and products like toner cartridges. This is no market niche. By Dr. Vijayendran’s estimate, these products represent a $20 billion market opportunity worldwide.
Even so, bio-based chemicals that simply match what petroleum can do could struggle for acceptance. As Dr. Vijayendran sees it, bio-based products must show themselves to be technically superior in some economically significant way.
“Being green is not enough,” he says. “The big opportunities in the chemical field are where current products have technical issues, environmental challenges or health concerns. The value goes up as you bring in functionality that’s needed.” |
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