Biopolymers industry hampered by production costs

01-Oct-13

Despite increasing consumer pressure for renewable materials and government legislation on the use of virgin plastics, the development of the biopolymer industry is being ‘held back’ by variations in costs and product quality, as per consultancy firm HIS. According to the IHS, the biopolymer industry is set to see a surge in demand, as businesses become more aware of resource scarcity, and focus more on sustainability. Demand for biodegradable polymers in North America, Europe and Asia will increase from 269,000 m tons in 2012 to nearly 525,000 m tons in 2017, representing an average annual growth rate of nearly 15% during the five-year period 2012-2017. IHS found that the wide scale commercialization of many biopolymers is being hampered by the ‘high costs’ of production. Susan L. Bell, author of the study, explained: “While bio-based polymers currently comprise less than one percent of the total global polymer market, there is significant consumer demand and that demand, combined with increasing legislation such as plastic bag bans and global warming initiatives, are driving increased market opportunity for bio-based plastics. At present, however, wide-scale commercialization of some of these technologies is being limited by significantly higher costs when compared to traditional, petroleum-based plastics, and in some cases, by product quality.” Bell highlighted that although Braskem’s ‘green’ polyethylene comprises ethylene deriving from Brazilian sugar cane ethanol (and is therefore renewable), its price premium is approximately 15-20% higher than that of a petroleum-based one. Speaking to Resource, Bell said: “Many of the new bio-based polymers being developed are still at an early stage. For example, bio-based polybutylene succinate and bio-based polycarbonate are only being produced at small scale. Often time, we say once we scale production up to a what would be a world scale plant, the polymer cost will drop significantly, but the question is how much will it drop and will it be competitive with existing petroleum based polymer? The report suggests that the outlook is more promising for bioplastics used in synthetic fibres, such as polyester in food and beverage containers, and for ‘engineering applications’. For this category of polymer, the bio-based alternatives are increasingly becoming less costly than petroleum derived options.