Doris de Guzman has been covering the oleochemicals – natural fats and oils-based chemicals – market for more than 12 years and spread her beat to inorganics and biofuels. She previously covered specialty chemicals industries such as cosmetics, personal care, household/consumer care products, food & beverages, industrial specialties, nanotechnology, nutrition/supplements, and other niche chemical markets.

This blog post originally appeared on Green Chemicals Blog on June 8, 2014.

INVISTA has been very active this year in pushing through its industrial biotechnology projects and the blog just recently posted its recent announcement about expanding the company’s collaboration with LanzaTech and commercialization of its bio-based LYCRA® spandex.

Last week, INVISTA and Austrian biotech company, Eucodis Bioscience, announce a collaboration for the screening and engineering of enzymes to further develop bio-derived processes for the production of industrial chemicals. The collaboration will leverage INVISTA’s capabilities in biotechnology and catalysis, its knowledge of the chemicals industry, and Eucodis’ enzyme discovery and engineering capabilities to assist in the development of new, bio-derived routes to industrial chemicals.

So far, the company has also partnered with the following biotech companies:

• Portugal-based SilicoLife for the development of new technologies to enable bio-derived process for the production of industrial chemicals (one of which is bio-butadiene)

• UK-based The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) for the development of new process/product development and scale-up of fermentation-based routes to industrial chemicals

• UK-based Ingenza for the development of new bio-derived routes to produce industrial chemicals

• Seattle, US-based Arzeda to develop technology platforms for a bio-derived processes initially focusing on bio-butadiene

Speaking of bio-based LYCRA® spandex, the blog mentioned previously that INVISTA did admit to having BASF as its supplier of bio-BDO to produce the material. BASF said it is supplying the bio-BDO (based on Genomatica’s technology) from its US-based facility but did not mention a specific location. Since BASF is producing petro-based BDO and BDO-derivatives in the US at its Geismar, Louisiana, facility, the blog assumes that is where the bio-BDO production is coming from.

The blog has written a comprehensive article and analysis about its interview with BASF and INVISTA concerning bio-based Lycra on Tecnon OrbiChem’s recently published Bio-Materials newsletter.

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