Butadiene is a key petrochemical: Approximately 10 million tons of butadiene are currently produced annually from oil, representing an existing market value around US$15 billion. According to a number of experts a shortage of butadiene is expected in coming years and alternative production routes are therefore indispensable.

The development of a butadiene biological production process is the scope of an industrial partnership between the Polish group Synthos and Global Bioenergies.

The agreement from the USPTO regarding the invention of butadiene bio-production through enzymatic dehydration places Global Bioenergies at the avant-garde of innovation in the fields of bio-sourced elastomers and polyamides. The company today validated and protected an unprecedented collection of metabolic processes to convert renewable resources into light olefins. In the future, we will deploy the necessary daring to transform these lab-scale successes into industrial assets.

—Philippe Marlière, co-founder and President of the Scientific Advisory Board of Global Bioenergies

The granting of this patent in the United States follows shortly after the granting of two patents in Australia that cover the isobutene production process as well as other, more generic aspects of the production of bio-sourced olefins and associated intermediates.

Global Bioenergies is developing a process to convert renewable resources into hydrocarbons through fermentation. The Company initially focused its efforts on the production of isobutene, one of the most important petrochemical building blocks that can be converted into fuels, plastics, organic glass and elastomers. Global Bioenergies continues to improve the yield of its process and is actively entering the industrial pilot testing phase. The company recently replicated this success to propylene and butadiene and is also looking to continue with other members of the gaseous olefins family, key molecules at the heart of petrochemical industry.