Toray Industries, Inc. jointly announced with Genomatica, Inc., a leading company in renewable chemicals process technology, that Toray has successfully made a partially bio-based PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) using 1,4-butanediol (BDO) made with Genomatica's bio-based process technology. The successful bench-level production gives Toray a significant boost towards commercial-scale production of partially bio-based PBT. Toray's tests confirmed that PBT made using this BDO has physical properties and formability equivalent to PBT made from petroleum-derived BDO, and Toray then succeeded in making prototypes of molded components.
Toray's plan is to produce a bio-based PBT at commercial scale using BDO made with Genomatica's process. Toray plans to share samples of bio-based PBT with its customers during 2013 to help develop market demand. Based on results to date, Toray expects to bring products to market as soon as supplies of this BDO are readily available from one of the producers that Genomatica licenses to use its BDO process. Genomatica has developed a process to produce BDO from renewable feedstocks rather than petroleum. This process includes an engineered microorganism, fermentation techniques and downstream processing. Genomatica's process was used for the successful commercial-scale production of 5 million pounds of BDO in November 2012.
29-Apr-13 
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