| toxic-free environment |
| CHEMICAL INDUSTRY JOURNAL |
Rising to the challenge of creating a future-proofed sustainable, toxic-free chemicals industry The question as to if we should imagine such a future has (hopefully) been answered with a resounding “we have no choice”, leaving us with the question “how”? The EU has outlined its answer in its newly published Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability Towards a Toxic-Free Environment which links into its Green Deal, Horizon Europe and the public-private partnership Circular Bio-based Europe. And the UK should be able to play a vital role. But what exactly are these initiatives? R&D was the ‘easy’ part when compared to bringing industrial players on-board; generating the political will; securing the finance; re-formulating regulations/ polices; accepting risk; changing end-user practices; handling legacy assets; shaping consumer perceptions; and, finally, building and operating commercial plants. Nonetheless, industry, governments, end-users, innovators and citizens globally are stepping-up to ensure this is the decade we’ll realise industrial-scale change in the chemicals we manufacture, use and then dispose of.
By Dr Sarah Hickingbottom
Bio-based Chemicals Business Consultant and Advocate Chemicals are indispensable to our daily lives, but contribute significantly to toxins, pollution, waste and emissions. Yet today, after decades of outstanding R&D and millions in investment, science has delivered previously unimaginable solutions to our climate, biodiversity and resource challenges. Industrial biotechnology and bio-based innovation means (for example) household waste can become organic base chemicals, industrial waste gases act as fertilizer feedstocks and waste cellulosic biomass is converted into novel, toxicfree industrial solvents. Plus, digitalisation, AI and IOT are revolutionising manufacturing alongside 3D printing, electrification and renewables – i.e. the technical barriers to achieving a sustainable, toxicfree chemicals industry using feedstocks that are renewable, bio-based and/or waste-derived where viable are being stripped away.
It’s a multi-layered, complex topic with a number of initiatives and from a sustainable, circular bioeconomy perspective, it’s useful to set the scene as to what exactly is (a) a bio-based chemical? Or biotechnology? Or (b) circular chemicals industry? Or (c) the initiative being called ‘Circular Bio-based Europe’ (CBE)? The simple answers being (a) bio-based chemicals are derived from non-petro feedstocks, such as crops, woody biomass and, preferentially, their waste-streams along the value-chain. In contrast, biotechnology is the use of biological processes with raw materials that may be bio- or petro-based. The bioeconomy encompasses both industrial biotechnology (IB) and bio-based chemicals and materials. (b) A circular chemicals industry is one where waste is exploited as feedstock – upcycling old molecules into new while eliminating pollutions and minimising resource consumption.
But if such innovations are never nurtured beyond pilot scale then we cannot truly call them ‘solutions’, but rather they are merely interesting ideas published in dusty journals. We cannot afford the gathering of any more dust, no matter how difficult scaling-up might be. Indeed, in some regards, we can argue the
34
