Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of Russian ...

OP-IV-2LACTIC ACID AS A BACKGROUND CHEMICAL FOR A«WHITE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY» DEVELOPMENTV.V. Kolbakov*, R.A. Kozlovskiy**, V.N. Parmon***, V.F. Shvets***Nordbiochem Ltd., Kuuse 2, Põlva, 63303 Estonia, e-mail: info@nordbiochem.eu**Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, Chair of PetrochemicalSynthesis, 9 Miusskaya Square, Moscow, 125047, Russia,tel/fax: +7(499)978-95-54, e-mail: shvets@muctr.edu.ru***Boreskov Institute of Catalysys SB RAS, Novosibirsk, RussiaThe growing oil demand, high oil prices and lack of perspectives of substantial increasingof oil production were the main reasons for the development of new industry of motor fuelproduction from renewable sources based on carbohydrates and vegetable oils. Progress in thedevelopment of new technologies of renewable raw materials transformations to fuels makesit possible to displace now up to 10% of fossil fuels to biodiesel and bioethanol. Moreover aprofitability of a large number of petrochemical manufactures is going down because of thegrowing oil prices. For many petrochemicals it becomes critically low and for some of them -negative and their production were closed (e.g. glycerol, based on propylene, lactic acid,based on ethylene or propylene, and others). In these situation the same raw materials ofvegetable origin, as for biofuels production, becomes competitive with oil for many ofcommodity chemical intermediate production. So unsaturated acids produced from vegetableoils are good raw materials for manufacture of alfa olefins, dicarboxilic acids and otherproducts. Cheap glycerol, produced from vegetable oils, becomes attractive intermediate formany other chemical products. But the largest raw material source for commodity chemicalintermediate production is glucose and sugars which can be isolated from vegetable sourcesof different kind, or produced by means of biotechnological methods from vegetablecarbohydrates of different origin (starch from corn, wheat, potatoes; cellulose from wood,straw, wood dust and so on). Progress in biotechnology, large resources and low andcomparatively stable prices of vegetable raw materials permanently make the list ofchemicals, produced from sugars and competitive with petrochemicals, longer and longer.Now the list includes ethanol, lactic acid, 1,3-propanediol, polyhydroxyalkanoates, pyruvicacid and some other products. The first two chemicals are the source for production of a hugenumber of other products many of which are ecologically friendly or biodegradable. So weare witnesses now of the birth of new kind of industrial chemistry which could be called«white chemistry». The «white chemistry» includes biotechnology, is based on sugars, isopposite to «black chemistry», based on oil, and corresponds to a part of «green chemistry»,142