Avantium starts the construction of a bio-MEG demo plant based on its Mekong technology
Type of post: NEWS.
Avantium
has just announced the commencement of the construction of a new plant that
will demonstrate the production of biobased monoethylene glycol (MEG) directly
from renewable sugars through its pioneering Mekong technology
(see press
release, 12/6/2018). The plant will be operational in 2019, employing up to
20 people. The objectives of the demonstration plant are: (1) to scale up the
novel bio-MEG technology; (2) to validate the technical and economic
feasibility of the process; (3) to collect data to execute an environmental
life-cycle analysis (LCA) quantifying the sustainability benefits of the technology.
Alongside this important investment decision by
the Dutch company, the European
Innovation Council (EIC) has selected the Mekong technology as part of a
program to bring innovations faster onto the market. The EIC has recently
announced the investment of 146 M$ in 79 top-class innovative projects (see EIC
press release, 24/5/2018).
MEG is one of the two monomers of the PET (the
most important polyester currently) and of the PEF (a promising alternative). Synvina, a joint venture between Avantium
and BASF, is leading the industrial efforts
to commercialize PEF (see more information here).
Today, more than 99% of MEG is generated from fossil resources and its market
demand is expected to grow in the following years. Hence, the great interest of
Avantium in producing bio-MEG. The Mekong technology is a 1-step, high atom
efficiency process which, according to Avantium, is competitive with the oil
based counterpart. Other companies are trying to validate a bio-MEG production
process (see “Braskem
and Haldor Topsoe to validate new bio-MEG production process in a demo plant”,
13/11/2017).
Figure 1. Simplified diagram of the Mekong
technology
In the same press release, Avantium has
confirmed that the biorefinery pilot plant for its Zambezi technology (high-purity
glucose and lignin from non-food biomass) is nearing completion. More
information about this pilot biorefinery: “Zambezi
pilot biorefinery project takes the next step”, 19/7/2017.