Biomass is frequently considered as an alternative feedstock for substitution of fossil oil, as it may allow to mitigate climate change and resources depletion. This biomass may be derived from agricultural residues, forestry residues or agroindustry residues, all of them containing cellulose which is the most abundant organic polymer on earth. However, direct substitution is not possible, and processes are needed for a preliminary conversion of biomass into intermediate products: the industrial biology sector provides such processes. As a feedstock for these processes, ligno-cellulosic sugars represent an attractive alternative to traditional sugars as they can be made from widespread resources, and do not compete with food or feed production.
Technologies currently used to produce ligno-cellulosic sugars deliver complex syrups containing inhibitors which hamper the fermentation performances and impurities which make the purification step for the desired molecule more difficult. Furthermore, biomass to building blocks technologies frequently propose to deliver molecules displaying characteristics that are significantly different from those of their fossil-based equivalents. Their use implies the need for heavy modifications and investments, taking place downstream in the value chain.
Isobutene is an important building block currently produced and used in the petrochemical industry for lubricants, rubbers, cosmetics, plastics, solvents, and fuels applications. Its global market is more than 15Mt a year and is growing 2.5% a year. At the same time, customers of fossil-based isobutene-derived goods are asking for more renewables.
The overall goal of OPTISOCHEM was to demonstrate the performance, the reliability and the environmental and socio-economic sustainability, of the entire value chains for the transformation of wheat straw, into bio-isobutene and derivatives. The project addressed two different isobutene derivatives families: oligomers and polyisobutylenes. These products are currently requested by the market for a wide array of applications. Presently these needs are satisfied by commercial processes designed to be fed with fossil-based isobutene. The project demonstrated that these needs could be satisfied by the existing processes when fed with bio-based isobutene from sustainably extracted wheat straw. The outcome of the project is to provide the backbone for a first profitable small scale plant for niche market prior to subsequent first of its kind 30kt per year flagship project and a series of numerous additional plants afterwards.
