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.