New acid facility paves the way for sustainable elastane
28/03/2012
Reverdia, a partnership set up by Dutch pharmaceutical company Royal DSM and Roquette Frères, a French manufacturer of by-products from starch, has set up what it claims is the world’s first large-scale production facility for bio-based succinic acid. It uses a proprietary yeast technology to convert sugars into succinic acid.
Bio-based succinic acid is derived from non-fossil feedstock and produced with sustainable production technologies that minimise carbon footprint. It is a building block that can be used in the manufacture of polymers, resins and many other products. Key applications already include footwear, but Reverdia believes its new production set-up will allow it to serve new application areas including polyester polyols for polyurethanes and elastane production for use in apparel. It has called its product Biosuccinium, saying it will “provide the impetus for an entire range of more renewable, and more sustainable products”.
A new production facility is scheduled to be operational by the end of the third quarter of 2012 and will have the capacity to produce about 10 kilotonnes per year. It is located on the Roquette site at Cassano Spinola in Italy, close to the port of Genoa to make efficient global logistics possible.
It will use on-site production of the starch feedstock and will use steam and power generated on site as well as the facility’s existing waste water treatment to give Biosuccinium what Reverdia has called “a best-in-class carbon footprint”.
Reverdia’s general manager, Will van den Tweel, said on announcing the that the production facility at Cassano Spinola was nearing completion: “The novel process is simple, stable, very energy efficient and generates less waste and impurities than the bacteria-based technologies that are currently being used in bio-based succinic acid.”
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