BASF and Purac developed a sustainable and highly efficient process for manufacturing succinic acid. The cooperation of both partners benefits from their complementary strengths in fermentation and downstream processing.
Possible applications for succinic acid are bioplastics, chemical intermediates, solvents, polyurethanes and plasticizers. The demand for succinic acid in these fields is anticipated to grow strongly in the next years.
- first production campaigns were successful
- industrial quantities are available today
- a 25,000 tons capacity fermentation production plant in Spain is planned to start up by 2013
The newly developed process combines high efficiency with the use of renewable substrates and the fixation of the greenhouse gas CO2 during the production. This results in a positive eco-footprint and makes bio-based succinic acid an economically and ecologically attractive alternative to petrochemical substitutes. The employed microorganism Basfia succiniciproducens is a natural producer of succinic acid and can process a wide variety of C3, C5 and C6 renewable feedstocks, including biomass sources.
