Five years later, all these factors and the fact that innovation
processes in the bioeconomy are cross-disciplinary, and include a
network of diverse stakeholders, are still relevant to managers of
bioeconomy organizations, irrespective of the specific production.
The most important and unique trait of bioeconomy productions, however,
is the virtually unlimited market for many said productions once an
economically viable production process has been identified. This is due
to the unique versatility of many biomolecules, independent of their
size (e.g. small biomolecules or large biopolymers), which creates room
for diverse potentially large-scale applications.
Two examples out of many possible ones nicely illustrate the concept.
Tannin is the name given to a mixture of high molecular weight
biophenols extracted from certain woods and bark and increasingly used
for widely different applications, including as an environmentally
friendly agrochemical.28 Due to an expensive and
energy-demanding production process, the current annual production of
commercial tannins amounts to about 230,000 tonnes. Tannin, however, has
a high-value chemical application as a building block in the preparation
of adhesives and resins.29 The limiting factor for its
utilization on the million tonne per year scale, has been and continues
to be its limited supply and high cost. In the words of the father of
the technology, “the potential is enormous, but it is not
realized”.30
Another example is pectin. Currently manufactured at 70,000 t/a rate,
this biopolymer is the most valued food
hydrocolloid.31 Though increasing since more than a
decade at 4-6% annual growth rate, its production from citrus peel (and
apple pomace) is intrinsically limited by the high capital and
operational expenses of conventional production plant and process,
respectively.31 From biobased aerogels of exceptional
thermal insulating power through superior food and beverage texturizer
and emulsifier, pectin has a number of potential applications that so
far were constrained by its limited supply.24 Once a
low cost, high-throughput production process will be discovered and
industrialized, for example based on emerging
hydrodynamic32 or acoustic33cavitation extraction of citrus waste peel, its potential will be
realized and the usage rate will increase to several hundreds of
thousand tonnes per year.
Aware of the potentially enormous demand for the above-mentioned and
many other bioproducts, bioeconomy companies owner of new process
technologies should partner with other companies and license their
proprietary technology so as to increase supply and lower the cost of
these biobased ingredients, while increasing customer confidence in the
biobased alternatives.
This will lead to major uptake of these products in place of competing,
less performing – but until now much cheaper – oil-based or
biobased alternatives, such as starch or gelatine in the case of pectin.
In selecting the partner companies, however, bioeconomy company managers
working in a highly competitive context should avoid to be naïve (as
well as to be too cynical, opposite side of the same
problem).34 Whether sourcing raw materials from
oil-based feedstocks or from biological resources, existing chemical
companies are (and will be) the main competitors of new bioeconomy
companies. In other words, the biorefinery is not the evolution of the
oil refinery, but rather its competitor.
2.6 Understanding the competitive landscape
As mentioned above, bioeconomy managers need a better understanding of
the competitive landscape in which their companies operate, namely the
global chemicals market.
One of the world’s largest biorefineries, located in France’s Bazancourt
(Figure 3), converts more than 4 million tons of biomass per year (3
million tons of sugarbeet + 1 million tons of wheat + 400,000 tons of
other biomasses such as alfalfa and woody materials) into sugar,
glucose, starch, food or pharmaceutical alcohol, ethanol fuel, cosmetic
actives, etc., with annual revenues exceeding \euro800
million.35 The site currently hosts eight companies
(ADM, Air Liquide, A.R.D., Cristal Union, Cristanol, Givaudan, Procethol
2G, Futurol project, Vivescia), none of which is a petrochemical
company. Out of 1,200 workers, 1,000 are permanent staff and 200 on-site
scientists.