BIOBASED CHEMICALS
No better deal emerged for Mossville, La. By the time C&EN visited Mossville, La., in February 2016, most of the town’s residents had left, opting to take a voluntary buy-out offered by Sasol, the South African petrochemical company that is in the midst of a big expansion of its operations on the town’s outskirts. Many of those remaining claimed they could not afford to relocate with the amount of money Sasol offered. They said they planned to meet with the company to discuss getting a better deal. According to Wilma Subra, an environmental consultant involved with the community, the group did meet with Sasol but without resolution. “For the most part, they never did get back to the community on that,” she says. Kim Cusimano, manager of public relations for Sasol’s North American operations, says she is unaware of a formal petition for changes to the voluntary buyout program and that the company continues to meet regularly with residents. Sasol estimates that approximately 100 homes will remain in Mossville after everyone who agrees to a buyout leaves town. For those who’ve stayed, things remain in a holding pattern. Haki Kazi Vincent is negotiating with Sasol to get the company to lease family property that he claims cannot be sold because of a long-standing deal with the federal government. Negotiations have not advanced since February, he says. Vincent adds that he is also having no luck getting Sasol to fix a fence around 10 acres of property that he says the company’s construction crew destroyed when it was laying pipe. “The people who you met are still there,” Subra says. “The construction is just disrupting their lives, and it’s just getting worse and worse.”—RICK
MULLIN
Biomass polymer firms noted substantial progress in 2016 With oil prices half what they were just a couple of years ago, 2016 would seem like an unlikely breakout year for biobased chemicals. But several firms in the field hit major commercial milestones over the past 12 months. Avantium and BASF formed a joint venture to build a half-billion-dollar furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) plant in Antwerp, Belgium, using Avantium’s catalysts to make FDCA out of sugar. FDCA is reacted with ethylene glycol to make polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a polyester meant to replace polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in soda bottles and other packages. Avantium has been collaborating with Coca-Cola and Danone for years. In September, Avantium and Toyobo said they would make PEF polymers and films together in Japan. The material won’t have to compete with oil-derived PET on environmental appeal alone. PEF has 10 times better oxygen barrier properties than PET, which could allow for practical plastic beer bottles. This year, DuPont and agricultural giant ADM unveiled a collaboration to develop a similar polymer, polytrimethylene furandicarboxylate, made from the biobased chemicals furan dicarboxylic methyl ester
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | DECEMBER 12/19, 2016
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O HO OH 2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid
and 1,3 propanediol. p-Xylene DuPont and ADM plan a demonstration facility in DecaO O tur, Ill. O Novomer scored CH3O OCH3 a huge gain when it Furan dicarboxylic sold its polyols unit methyl ester to Saudi Aramco in a deal potentially worth $100 million. The polyols aren’t biobased, but by using carbon dioxide as a raw material, they do lock in a fair amount of greenhouse gas. Moreover, the company will use the sale proceeds to develop a plant that makes acrylic acid via a biobased route. Its process begins with ethylene oxide made from ethanol and carbon monoxide possibly derived from agricultural waste. Anellotech is taking petroleum-based chemicals head-on with its process to turn lignocellulosic biomass into the aromatic chemicals benzene, toluene, and xylene. This year, the company commissioned a pilot plant in Silsbee, Texas. It also received some pretty big backing, including investments from a Toyota unit and the Japanese beverage maker Suntory.—ALEX TULLO
BIOTECHNOLOGY
U.S. prepares for national food labeling standard U.S. consumers are beginning to see labels on food products indicating whether they contain genetically modified ingredients, thanks to legislation enacted this year. The new law requires USDA to establish by July 2018 a national mandatory standard for labeling genetically modified foods. It also prohibits U.S. states from enacting their own laws for labeling such foods.—BRITT
ERICKSON
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CREDIT: CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY
BUSINESS
Biobased materials hit the big time
