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.