Mitsubishi Chemical Corp (MCC, Tokyo / Japan; www.m-kagaku.co.jp) and US biochemical company Genomatica (San Diego, California; www.genomatica.com) are studying the construction of a joint venture bio-BDO plant in Asia. The plant will be the first commercial bio-BDO in the region. The companies said they have signed a memorandum of understanding, under which Genomatica would provide its bio-BDO technology for the project, and MCC would provide its manufacturing and sales expertise. BDO is an intermediate used to manufacture products such as spandex, automotive plastics and running shoes, and has a global market of approximately USD 4 bn.

Hiroaki Ishizuka, MCC’s representative director, said C4 chemicals such as BDO are strategically important to MCC. "Asia is the fastest-growing chemicals market in the world and we see great potential to deliver bio-based chemicals to this market as a growing complement to our current conventionally-sourced chemicals,” he remarked. The partners will also discuss collaborating to develop other chemicals. They noted that MCC has an equity investment in Genomatica as part of the US company’s recently announced USD 45m (EUR 30m) financing deal.

Genomatica is already building a demonstration scale bio-BDO plant in the US in partnership with UK-based food ingredients producer Tate & Lyle (London; www.tateandlyle.com). Located at Tate & Lyle's corn wet mill in Decatur, Illinois / USA, the plant is expected to start up in the third quarter of this year. In addition, Genomatica has signed a strategic partnership with Italy’s Mossi & Ghisolfi (M&G, Tortona; www.gruppomg.com) for the “second generation” production of bio-BDO. The partners plan to build a demonstration-scale bio-BDO plant, based on cellulosic biomass, at the site of M&G's Chemtex engineering division in Rivalta, northern Italy. Start-up is scheduled for 2012.