Increasing environmental awareness on the part of product manufacturers and the desire to reduce dependency on oil are the leading drivers behind the $2.4 billion global market for biorenewable chemicals (BRC) in 2010. As per SBI Energy, this steadily growing market has experienced a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.8%, a growth trend that is going to increase as the world resumes a more normal production page and new bio-based chemicals such as bioethylene come to market. By 2015 the BRC market will be worth $6.8 billion, a CAGR of 22.8% between 2010 and 2015. The largest region for BRC sales continues to be the U.S., which captured 21.6% of the BRC market in 2009. The platform biorenewable chemicals (PBC) glycerin and lactic acid make up the bulk of biorenewable chemicals being sold in 2010, accounting for 79.2% of the market. There is a large range in market maturity for PBCs, ranging from mature markets such as lactic acid to nascent markets for chemicals such as succinic acid. Compared to the platform chemicals market, the intermediate biorenewable chemicals (IBC) market is much more nascent, particularly in relation to its potential. In 2010, IBCs accounted for US$574.9 mln of the BRC market; however this will grow to US$2.5 billion in 2015 and account for 37% of biorenewable chemical sales. The strongest growth will be for secondary chemicals such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) and bioethylene that are used to manufacture bio-based plastics.
07-Dec-11 
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