Chemical Engineering August 2013 - 17

Renmatix
ous applications,
manufacturers
FIGURE 4. The Renmatix Plantrose process
uses supercritical water to produce fermentable
sugars from woody biomass
nomics now, " comments Cascone. " Economics
has taken the front seat. "
" Bio-based chemicals need to be
equal to or better on price than petroleum-derived
alternatives, or else
no one will buy them, " says SCA's
McLaughlin.
That philosophy has been central at
Myriant and elsewhere. " Myriant does
not believe the market will accept a
price premium [for bio-based products],
nor do we count on it, " explains Saleh.
If bio-based chemicals are to become
a viable alternative to petroleum-derived
chemicals for customers in varimust
be able to secure financing to
expand to the volumes necessary
to take advantage of economies of
scale. And the funding challenge
continues even after commercialization,
says David Berry, partner
at Flagship Ventures (Cambridge,
Mass.; www.flagshipventures.com).
" The two biggest challenges are
funding and scaleup, " says Gevo's
Lund. Financing growth has become
more difficult, he says, but a company
with a strategically important
product that is within striking distance
of the market will have a much
easier time.
" Ten years ago, the funding environment
was more favorable, and a
number of bio-based chemical and fuel
companies started in that timeframe, "
remarks Berry, so there has been a
lot of commercialization activity with
those companies. But a potential problem
for the industry is that there are
not as many companies in the " second
wave, " he says. " Part of that drop-off is
that there is a massive funding gap,
and getting the large amount of capital
needed to bring ideas to commercial
products is not easy.
Into the mainstream
Having a sufficient number of biobased
companies in enough product
areas producing bio-based chemical
building blocks commercially in highenough
volumes will take time, and the
industry should not have any illusions
of displacing the petrochemicals industry,
explains SCA's McLaughlin. " We
think the bio-based chemicals industry
should not try to compete with the petrochemicals
industry - we want them
to work together to complement the
petrochem industry. We want to reduce
the dependency on petroleum feedstocks,
but we're not going to displace
the petrochem industry. "
■
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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM AUGUST 2013 17
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Chemical Engineering August 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering August 2013