Market Overview
World over, there has been a rising trend on the consumption of environment friendly chemicals which can be produced through easily available renewable materials. Renewable chemicals are one such chemicals which are derived from rapidly replaceable sources of carbon. These chemicals are basically produced from renewable feedstock including biomass, microorganisms, and agricultural raw materials. These chemicals serve as a substitute for petroleum-based chemicals.
On the basis of product type, the renewable chemicals market is categorized into alcohols, organic acids, ketones, platform chemicals, biopolymers, and others. These chemicals find their usage for various purposes including consumer goods, resins, surfactants and lubricants, and plastics. Production processes such as thermo-chemical conversion, dehydrative transformation, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and bioconversion, production of Fischer-Tropsch diesel, product separation and bioconversion, reductive transformation, acid hydrolysis, and gasification/fermentation are used for producing these chemicals.
Based on application, the renewable chemicals market is categorized into transportation, textiles, food safety, environment, communication, housing, recreation, health and hygiene, bio-medical, agriculture, and others. Owing to stringent government regulations, environmental awareness among people to use eco-friendly products are boosting the renewable chemicals market in environment, bio-medical, and agriculture categories.
With the declining reserves of petroleum reserves and associated environment pollution in using derived products, chemicals which are renewable in nature can act as a better alternative to the petroleum-based product types. Due to rapidly growing demand for chemicals to support various industrial processes and growing environmental concerns, the renewable chemicals market is set to rise as these chemicals are environment friendly in nature.
Market Dynamics
Growth drivers
The renewable chemicals market is driven by various factors including increasing consumer awareness regarding sustainable development and the rising awareness of the harmful effect caused due to persistence usage of conventional chemicals. The government and environmental regulatory authorities are imposing strict regulations to curb environmental damage such as European Commission has initiated the REACH regulatory mechanism for the protection of human health and environment from the risks posed by chemicals, which favours the growth of the renewable chemicals market. Moreover, in addition to these, abundant and low-cost feedstock, and increasing technological innovations are boosting the growth of the renewable chemicals market.
Restraints
High cost of product serves a major restraint in the renewable chemicals market. The production technology used for producing these chemicals is relatively new and there is a limited production capacity for producing these chemicals, global production of these chemicals is yet to achieve economy of scale. Owing to these limitations, the renewable chemicals market has the scope of further improvement in terms of capacity optimization and production enhancement.
Opportunities
The demand for renewable chemicals in the emerging nations such as China and India are limited and is in a nascent stage. However, owing to the vast market for chemicals in order to facilitate the production processes of manufacturing industry with minimum environmental pollution, the demand for environmental friendly chemicals will rise at a significant pace in these countries. This offers huge growth opportunities for the growth of renewable chemicals market in the emerging nations.
Insights by geography
During the historical period, Europe accounted for a significant market share in the renewable chemicals market owing to the strict government norms which promotes the usage of environment friendly chemicals. However, APAC is expected to witnesses highest CAGR in the renewable chemicals market owing to growing demand for clean chemicals for supporting various manufacturing processes. The persistent issue of high environmental pollution, faster rate of oil depletion, and growing greenhouse gases concern in the region are the major will also positively influence the market growth.
Competitive Landscape
Some of the major players operating in the global renewable chemicals market are BioAmber Inc., Genomatica Inc., Myriant Corporation, DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products Company LLC, Cobalt Technology LLC, BioMCN B.V., Yield10 Bioscience Inc., Corbion NV, NatureWorks LLC, and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation.
