Bioprocess developer Genomatica (San Diego, California / USA; www.genomatica.com) has granted additional licence rights for its 1,4-butanediol (BDO) process technology to BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com). The scope of the agreement has been extended to include certain (undisclosed) countries in Southeast Asia – the original deal focused on North America. “We appreciate Genomatica’s openness to give BASF greater flexibility to add BDO from renewable feedstock to our portfolio and to respond to market requirements,” said Stefan Blank, president of BASF’s intermediates division.

The agreement allows BASF to build a production facility of up to 75,000 t/y using Genomatica’s patented “GENO BDO” technology. The single-step fermentation process can use either dextrose or sucrose as renewable feedstock.

BASF has already produced commercial volumes of renewable BDO, both for testing and commercial use – see Plasteurope.com of 13.02.2015. The company has previously announced it would raise global capacity for BDO to 650,000 t/y by the end of 2015, and for polytetrahydrofuran “PolyTHF” to 350,000 t/y by the beginning of 2016 – see Plasteurope.com of 23.01.2015.

Genomatica is using its bioprocess engineering platform to develop technology for other chemicals, including butadiene and nylon intermediates.