Guillaume Boissonnat-Wu , managing director at Pili , explores recent advances in the supply of biobased chemicals
Biobased aromatics : Pioneering the path to industrial-scale supply
Guillaume Boissonnat-Wu , managing director at Pili , explores recent advances in the supply of biobased chemicals
Aromatic chemicals are fundamental components of modern chemistry , with applications spanning polymers , detergents , solvents , pharmaceuticals , cosmetics , dyes and pigments . Aromatic compounds are organic carbo- or heterocycles that incorporate a network of delocalised double bonds , giving them a planar structure .
The most important members of this chemical family — benzene , toluene and xylenes , collectively known as BTX — are extracted via the catalytic reforming of naphtha . Global production of BTX is estimated at approximately 150 million tonnes / year . More complex compounds , such as terephthalic acid , phenols and anilines , are subsequently synthesised from BTX and represent critical intermediates in industrial chemistry .
Reducing the carbon impact of industrial chemistry is a topic of increasing interest . Among the different strategies , the replacement of petrochemical-based compounds by biobased equivalents has emerged as a promising option for some specific targets . The use of biomassderived carbon sources originating from CO 2 by photosynthesis makes it possible to circulate the
CO 2 within the atmosphere , thus limiting its net emissions and global warming potential .
For instance , organic alcohols such as ethanol and butanol , which have been produced via fermentation for over a century , serve as key components of biofuels . Biobased organic acids including acetic acid ( vinegar ), butyric acid and succinic acid are today commercially available at industrial scale , completing the range of their petrochemical counterparts .
However , no industrial source of biobased aromatic compounds had been launched commercially until recently . Three main sources of circular aromatics have been developed independently and each is discussed below .
Waste-plastics derived aromatics
One of the sources of circular aromatics lies in the recycling of plastic materials that contain aromatic structures . Depolymerising polyethylene terephthalate ( PET ) can yield terephthalic acid derivatives that can be converted into BTX and subsequently purified . Similarly , replacing crude naphtha oil with pyrolysis oils derived from waste plastics can theoretically yield circular carbon streams .
In recent years , these techniques have attracted significant investment . Shell initiated a project in the early 2020s , aiming at constructing a pyrolysis oil-upgrading unit in the Netherlands , which was discontinued in 2024 . In 2024 , the Dutch company
Figure 1 - Anthranilic acid ( right ) & Pili biobased version ( below )
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NH 2
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50 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981