A market-driven algorithm for the assessment of promising bio-based chemicals.

Abstract

Actors willing to participate in biomass-based value chains need to screen through a vast number of product options to identify the most promising ones. This is challenging as (a) processes for biomass-based chemicals/materials are still in development stage, thus do not perform well in techno-economic evaluations, (b) factors as which and how many links of the value chain should be uptaken, are not fully addressed by techno-economic analysis. Inspired by the Five Forces framework for industry analysis, this work presents an algorithm-like approach for assessing the attractiveness of biomass-based products. The algorithm relies on market data to classify the different sources as posing a low, medium, or high threat to the profit of a company that is considering production of a certain chemical/material. The approach is exemplified by analyzing the attractiveness of the biomass-lactic acid-polylactic acid route in the context of defining pathways for development of a biomass-based industry in Uruguay.