Biotechnology company Bio-on (Bologna / Italy; www.bio-on.it) is to build a glycerol-based PHA plant in Italy in partnership with Italian agro-industrial group Eridania Sadam (www.eridaniasadam.it). Bio-on has granted a license for the new process to Eridania Sadam, which is part of Gruppo Industriale Maccaferri (Bologna; www.maccaferri.com). The plant will be located at an Eridania Sadam site.

Bio-on and Eridania Sadam, which already have a partnership to develop a process for producing levulinic acid from by-products of the sugar industry (see Plasteurope.com of 02.04.2015), will work together to build a facility with a 5,000 t/y output, expandable to 10,000 t/y. The plant, which will be Italy’s first glycerol-based PHA production facility, will take glycerol produced as a co-product in biodiesel production. It will require a EUR 55m investment from Gruppo Industriale Maccaferri holding company SECI, the companies said.

"We are investing EUR 4m in purchasing the license for this new technology developed by Bio-on," said Eridania Sadam chairman Massimo Maccaferri, adding that, "This all-natural bioplastic represents a technological challenge that can contribute towards the growth of our group in the new ‘green’ chemistry industry, with an eco-compatible and eco-sustainable approach."

Bio-on chairman Marco Astorri said: "We have granted the first technological license from glycerol in line with our expectations and will be entering into a new collaboration to develop the promising high-performing biopolymers business developed by Bio-on and produced in Italy from glycerol by SECI."

PHA can be used to replace various traditional polymers currently made with petrochemical processes using hydrocarbons. Bio-on said its PHAs guarantee the same thermo-mechanical properties and have the advantage that they are naturally biodegradable.