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BASF Continues Sustainability Drive with New Partnership

Nov. 6, 2024

Collaboration with Acies Bio aims to develop a commercially viable technology to diversify raw materials from renewable methanol for home and personal care products.

Amanda Joshi

BASF and biotechnology company Acies Bio have agreed to partner to further develop a sustainable fermentation technology to produce fatty alcohols from methanol. Fatty alcohols are essential building blocks for several ingredients in the home and personal care markets, in particular surfactants.

Acies Bio’s OneCarbonBio synthetic biology platform is designed to efficiently convert renewable methanol, derived from captured CO₂ emissions, into a variety of chemical raw materials. BASF’s Care Chemicals division and Acies Bio will use the specialized microbes and scale up the fermentation process to produce fatty acids and derivatives to manufacture various chemical compounds.

According to BASF, the project will increase scale and flexibility, diversifying its renewable feedstock portfolio and contributing to the resilience of Care Chemicals’ global supply chain.

What People Are Saying

Matthias Maase, global director sustainability, Care Chemicals BASF: “Biotechnology complements our chemistry to create a more sustainable future. We are very pleased to have found the right partner in Acies Bio to further develop this innovation at an early stage. With a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, our research scope of the partnership covers the entire chain from production strain development to large scale manufacturing. This will be of benefit to our customers in Personal Care, Home Care and I&I and Industrial Formulators worldwide.”

Gregor Kosec, director of R&D, Acies Bio: “Partnering with BASF marks an important milestone, reflecting a significant recognition of Acies Bio’s R&D efforts. By combining our advanced microbial production strains and the OneCarbonBio platform with BASF’s proven process development and supply chain expertise, we are poised to bring our technologies to a global scale. This collaboration demonstrates the transformative potential of Acies Bio’s microbial innovations to drive net-zero production of specialty and industrial chemicals.”

About the Author

Amanda Joshi | Managing Editor

Amanda Joshi has more than 18 years of experience in business-to-business publishing for both print and digital content. Before joining Chemical Processing, she worked with Manufacturing.net and Electrical Contracting Products. She’s a versatile, award-winning editor with experience in writing and editing technical content, executing marketing strategy, developing new products, attending industry events and developing customer relationships.

Amanda graduated from Northern Illinois University in 2001 with a B.A. in English and has been an English teacher. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and daughter, and their mini Aussiedoodle, Riley. In her rare spare time, she enjoys reading, tackling DIY projects, and horseback riding.