Foreword

Spain is the world’s largest exporter of oranges, and itself has a large orange juice industry. This naturally creates a large amount of waste peel – waste that (being organic) can already be processed in many different ways, such as fed into anaerobic digestion to produce biogas for energy. However, the MIPLASCOE project is aiming to do something a little different: by fermenting the orange peel they aim to produce ester monomers that can then be polymerised into polyester plastics. The intention is that these plastics will be blow-moulded into bottles for the orange juice, thus reducing the petroleum input into the industry and producing more sustainable packaging. This is a significant improvement on sending the waste to landfill, which is current procedure, although some is......

Other News this Month Includes:

Policy

• Dutch RIVM investigates bioeconomy's relationship with REACH regulation
• Identifying barriers to SMEs entering the bioeconomy​

Markets

• Transparency Market Research Bio-Based Butadiene outlook
• Macquarie completes UK Green Investment Bank acquisition​

Research & Development

• Intelligently choosing safer biobased solvents
• Kraig Biocraft to continue developing spider silk materials for the US Army
• Twist partners with Synbio for DNA synthesis
• New partnership aims to produce enzymes at industrial scale​

Polymers

• Corbion's PLA now from sustainably sourced sugar
• Plastics from Orange Peel
• Coffee packaging from Braskem
• Kelheim Fibres develops biodegradable viscose for wet-wipes
• Bio-on's PHA expanding into unexpected applications
• Itaconix polymers to get first applications
• Bio-On to open first Bio-PHA plant for cosmetics​

Chemicals

• Circa forms partnership to launch Cyrene solvent
• Genomatica announces new 1,3-butylene glycol process
• BioAmber launches Pharmaceutical Grade Biosuccinic Acid
• Amyris to produce nutrition chemicals for DSM
• Bio-based adipic acid - four pathways analysed
• Hoover Color partners with Ecoat for bio-based coatings
• Verdezyne commissions first renewable chemicals facility, to begin with DDA
• Enza Biotech acquired by Croda
• Metsä commissions new bioproduct plant
• Corbion seeks to purchase struggling microalgae company
• Gevo's isobutanol technology now available for licensing​

Consumer Products

• Spectra unveils 100% bio-based cosmetic bottles
• Pond complete first fully biobased and biodegradable particleboard​

Events

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