Excerpts from an article in Nikkei Biotech on
https://bio.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/column/16/031700078/090600030/
Business Innovation Partners (Kawasaki City) sells “HEMIX,” a biomass plastic made from hemicellulose. Hemicellulose is a component that accounts for 20-30% of plant cell walls, but the company is focusing on it as “it has no specific uses and is an unused resource” (according to the company’s website). The company spun off its biomass business on July 1, 2023, and established an affiliate company, Hemicellulose (Kawasaki City), with the aim of further expanding its business.
Shikibo (Osaka City), which manufactures, processes, and sells textile products, announced in May 2024 that it has developed a biomass plastic called “CottResin” that reuses cotton that was previously discarded. The company aims to achieve sales of 300 million yen in three years’ time, with a view to applying it to a wide range of applications such as automobile parts, electrical appliances, and building materials.
Daicel manufactures and sells “CAFBLO,” a biomass plastic made by blending non-phthalate plasticizers with cellulose acetate, which is derived from non-edible biomass such as wood and cotton and has marine biodegradability, to give it thermoplastic properties. In September 2023, the company announced that it had obtained certification for “marine biodegradable biomass plastic”. In the future, the company will expand the CAFBLO lineup by combining it with plasticizers so that it can be applied to a variety of plastic products.
Toho Chemical Industries (Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture), which manufactures synthetic resin plates, and Nekuas (Awara City, Fukui Prefecture), which manufactures biomass plastic raw materials, announced in May 2024 that they have developed RECEBIO, a cellulose acetate sheet material that is also marine degradable. The product is characterized by its high transparency of 89% total light transmittance, which was previously difficult with marine biodegradable plastics. It can also be processed in the same way as general-purpose plastics, such as cutting, bending, and printing.
Kaneka, which sells the biodegradable polymer Green Planet, and Rengo, which handles the wood-derived biomass plastic Viscopal, are also working to increase bioplastic production overseas, where the raw materials are closer to the production areas.
Existing biodegradable plastics, including polylactic acid, are said to have issues with low biodegradability in the ocean and high manufacturing costs. In recent years, research and development of new materials that overcome these challenges has also progressed.
In May 2024, a research group from the University of Tokyo and Gunma University announced that they had synthesized a polymer that is degradable by microorganisms in soil from propylene, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen peroxide, which are cheap and abundant industrial raw materials. The key point is that rather than directly synthesizing the target polymer, they first synthesized a different polymer and then performed “main chain editing,” which involves further chemical reactions on the chain of that polymer. Traditionally, these polymers were synthesized using fermentation with microorganisms or expensive chemical raw materials, which posed issues with production volume and production costs, but the advantage of the newly developed synthesis method is that it can use low-cost raw materials.
In May 2024, Tohoku University announced that it had developed a biodegradable composite material using handmade Japanese paper, a traditional craft from Kawasaki Town, Miyagi Prefecture, and the biodegradable plastic polybutylene succinate (PBS). When this material was added to compost made from food waste and sludge, it was more than 80% biodegraded after five weeks. This material also had high strength, and its tensile strength was significantly higher than that of washi paper or PBS alone.