Italian petrochemicals producer Versalis, a subsidiary of energy group Eni, and its joint venture partner US bioengineering company Genomatica have been succeeding in making bio-rubber from bio-butadiene (bio-BD) in a pilot-scale facility.

According to the companies, the successful production of bio-polybutadiene (bio-BR) is a remarkable milestone for the rubber industry as it enables an improved technological and sustainability footprint; it is also a significant development for the broader butadiene industry, which produces more than 10 million t of the rubber chemical annually.

The bio-BD is made from a newly developed on-purpose process using various types of sugars as renewable feedstock rather than the traditional hydrocarbons.

The jv partners said they first determined 1,3 butanediol (1,3-BDO) to be the most suitable intermediate to produce bio-BD. Genomatica then developed a microorganism that produced 1,3-BDO in a way that enabled cost-efficient, scalable fermentation, recovery and subsequent process operations and Versalis leveraged its process engineering and catalysis capabilities as well as its polymer expertise to purify the 1,3-BDO, dehydrate it and then purify the resulting BD.

Versalis has made several kilograms of BD from 1,3-BDO at its research centers in Novara and Mantua, both in Italy. It makes bio-BR at its Ravenna, Italy, R&D center using both anionic and Ziegler-Natta catalysis.

The companies say initial testing of the bio-BDE and bio-BR has demonstrated good compatibility with industry standards. Versalis is continuing to test the bio-BD within its other proprietary rubber and plastics technologies such as styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), styrene-butadiene-styrene rubber (SBS) and ABS polymer.

The joint venture of Versalis and Genomatica was founded in early 2013 to develop a complete end-to-end process for on-purpose production of BD from non-food biomass. The partners plan to license the technology.