Page 193 - CW E-Magazine (8-4-2025)

Special Report

Global bio-based polymer market to grow 13%

annually through 2029, led by Asia and North America

he new market and trend report The full report for €3,000 and a (PHA) capacities. Commercial new-
“Bio-based Building Blocks and free short version are now available at: comers such as casein polymers and
TPolymers – Global Capacities, https://renewable-carbon.eu/commer- polyethylene furanoate (PEF) recorded
Production and Trends 2024-2029”, cial-reports. a rise in production capacity and are ex-
written by the international biopoly- pected to continue to grow signifi cantly
mer expert group of the nova-Institute, Strong growth for bio-based polymers until 2029.
shows capacities and production data until 2029
for 17 commercially available, bio 2024 was a respectable year for Additionally, the total production
based polymers in the year 2024 and a bio-based polymers, with an overall volume of bio-based polymers has been
forecast for 2029. expected CAGR of 13% to 2029. Overall, 4.2-mt in 2024, which is 1% of the total
bio-based biodegradable polymers have production volume of fossil-based poly-
The just released, annually up- large installed capacities with an mers, and the CAGR of bio-based poly-
dated market report by nova-Institute expected CAGR of 17% to 2029, but the mers is, with 13%, signifi cantly higher
includes the following features on 434 current average capacity utilisation is than the overall growth of polymers
pages: Coverage of 17 bio-based build- moderate at 65%. In contrast, bio-based (2-3%). This development is expected
ing blocks and all 17 commercially non-biodegradable polymers have a to continue until 2029 (Figure 1). With
available bio-based polymers, compre- much higher utilisation rate of 90%, but these growth rates, the share of bio-
hensive information on the capacity will only grow by 10% to 2029. based polymers will increase up to 2%.
development from 2018 to 2029, as
well as production data for the years Epoxy resin and polyurethane resin Of the total 4.2-mt of bio-based
2023 and 2024, per bio-based polymer (PUR) production is growing mode- polymers produced in 2024, cellulose
and analyses of market developments rately at 9% and 8%, respectively, while acetate (CA), with a bio-based content
and producers per building block and polypropylene (PP) and cyclic aliphatic of 50%, and epoxy resins, with a bio-
polymer, allowing readers to quickly polycarbonates (APC) capacities are based content of 45%, account for more
gain an overview of developments that increasing by 30%. Despite a decline than half of the bio-based production,
go far beyond capacity and production in production of biodegradables, espe- 26% and 32%, respectively. This is fol-
fi gures. In addition, the market study cially for polylactic acid (PLA) in Asia, lowed by 30% bio-based PUR with 9%,
includes a statistical report on “Mass capacities have increased by 40%. The 100% bio-based PLA with 8%, poly-
Balance and Attribution (MBA)” pro- same applies to polyhydroxyalkanoate amides (PA) (60% bio-based content) with
ducts available worldwide, based
on an extensive analysis of the ISCC
database, a detailed review of current
European policy landscape for bio-based
polymers, as well as a comprehensive
summary of biodegradability and bio-
degradable polymers. This information
is supported by 60 fi gures, 50 tables
and 218 company profi les.

The data published annually by
European Bioplastics and the data pub-
lished by Plastics Europe for 2023 are
taken from the market report published
by the nova-Institute, but with a smaller
or different selection of bio-based poly-
mers, based on different scopes. Fig. 1: Plastics production from 1950 to 2023.

Chemical Weekly April 8, 2025 193

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