Bio-Succinic Acid

BioAmber plant in Pomacle France.

BioAmber has a biobased succinic acid plant in France witha capacity of 3,000,000 kg. Succinic acid is used to make polyester resins and as a raw material for further chemical manufacturing. They are planning to build a plant in North America of 20,000,000 kg capacity, probably near Minneapolis. They have plans for Brasil and Asia too.

These plants are making succinic acid with genetically engineered organisms. BioAmber uses an E. coli for fermentation, and has elaborate separation process to produce the pure succinic acid. As mentioned in other posts, the trick when making bio-acids is the separation from the other acids.

BioAmber claims that the process is economical when oil is as cheap as $40/barrel, but that is dubious since the price of fermentable sugar depends on the price of oi.

BioAmber won a 2011 Award from EPA for the technology.  BioAmber has agreements with Cargill, DuPont, Mitsubishi Chemical and Mitsui.

Thge company plans to make 1,4 butanediol from succinic acid. Using the diol and the diacid one could make a 100% biosourced polyester which would be desirable for specialty markets.