The stakes of producing bioplastics on an industrial scale

Bio­plas­tics are not just inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts. Their devel­op­ment requires estab­lish­ing rela­tion­ships between major con­trac­tors and poly­mer chemists. Alliances are need­ed in the indus­tri­al sec­tor to allow for new raw mate­ri­als, increas­ing the crossover between chem­istry and bio­chem­istry. Total is turn­ing its atten­tion to these changes in the industry. 

Patrick Pinenq and Dim­itri Rousseaux work in bio­plas­tic devel­op­ment at Total. They are at the inter­face between R&D and the mar­ket, where major deci­sion-mak­ers and spe­cialised experts are reshap­ing the indus­tri­al sector. 

We are see­ing new bio­plas­tics made from coconuts and shrimp shells. How do these look from an indus­tri­al perspective?

Patrick Pinenq. They are inter­est­ing from a sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal stand­point. But from an indus­tri­al per­spec­tive they are niche prod­ucts because the raw mate­ri­als sim­ply aren’t avail­able in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties. In indus­try, scale is key. Over 360,000 kT of plas­tic is pro­duced glob­al­ly per year, requir­ing plen­ti­ful, cheap raw mate­ri­als. That’s why petro­le­um is so useful. 

Dim­itri Rousseaux. If you want to work with bio-sourced and biodegrad­able mate­ri­als, you need suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties to make an impact. Oth­er­wise, pro­duc­tion lev­els will remain neg­li­gi­ble. That being said, to pro­duce bio­plas­tics requires biotech­no­log­i­cal process­es, there­fore rethink­ing pro­duc­tion scales. Man­u­fac­tur­ing in clus­ters may be more use­ful than giant fac­to­ries, for example. 

But we still need to get these new poly­mers into the real econ­o­my. That’s why we’re main­ly look­ing at raw mate­ri­als that are avail­able in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties, such as veg­etable oils, sug­ar and starch. We want to ensure indus­tri­al scale pro­duc­tion; around sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand met­ric tons. That’s why Total is devel­op­ing our sec­ond PLA fac­to­ry at Grand­puits in Seine-et-Marne, in France. When its 100kT capac­i­ty is added to that of the Total fac­to­ry in Thai­land (75kT), Total Cor­bion PLA will be the world’s num­ber one PLA manufacturer. 

Are pro­duc­tion costs sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than those of petroleum? 

Patrick Pinenq. Yes, the raw mate­ri­als are more expen­sive. But there are a cou­ple of things to take into account. First, in a final prod­uct (con­tain­er and con­tent), like a pot of yogurt for exam­ple, plas­tic raw mate­ri­als rep­re­sent only a small per­cent­age of the over­all cost. Hence, the high­er cost is not just the inputs. New tech­nolo­gies, skills and invest­ment also make bio­plas­tics more expen­sive. So, these kinds of projects have to be devel­oped with a close eye on the needs of end clients who will bear the extra cost. 

Devel­op­ment of new poly­mers must reduce the envi­ron­men­tal impact of plas­tics, which requires coop­er­a­tion of every­one along the val­ue chain. When con­sumers are close­ly involved in a product’s end-of-life, they are also more inter­est­ed in the effects and ori­gin of the plas­tics we devel­op for them. 

In 2019, Total got togeth­er with Mars and Nestlé to devel­op chem­i­cal recy­cling in France. In Octo­ber 2020, Total announced the con­struc­tion of France’s first chem­i­cal recy­cling plant, in part­ner­ship with Plas­tic Ener­gy. The plant is set to start oper­a­tions in 2023, with a pro­cess­ing capac­i­ty of 15kT of plas­tic waste per year. Total, L’Oréal and Lan­za­t­e­ch have also just announced a world first: a plas­tic cos­met­ic bot­tle made from indus­tri­al car­bon emis­sions (in this case, gas emis­sions from steel fac­to­ries). This shows that all com­pa­nies in the val­ue chain are now con­cerned with its over­all impact. 

Is the work of poly­mer chemists chang­ing significantly? 

Dim­itri Rousseaux. First­ly, we have to con­sid­er a wider range of effects when devel­op­ing our prod­ucts, tak­ing into account their dura­bil­i­ty for instance, which is part of their car­bon foot­print. So, all solu­tions must under­go a life­cy­cle analy­sis in order to make sure they are envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and avoid well-inten­tioned mis­takes. We have teams of spe­cial­ists for life cycle analysis. 

Sec­ond­ly, our indus­try is forg­ing alliances through­out the val­ue chain in order to gen­er­ate syn­er­gies. We are expand­ing our areas of exper­tise in R&D beyond our tra­di­tion­al remit, since we now have some skills in biotech, where we are run­ning lab­o­ra­to­ries and strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tions. R&D is dri­ving the cur­rent transformation.