Commercialization of Biological Materials Accelerated    

To accelerate the development of the biological material sector and promote the cyclic economy, the National Development and Reform Commission of China has decided to establish a biological material high-tech commercialization special fund during 2008-2009. The special fund will mainly be used to support major biological material commercialization projects with intellectual property right and guiding role such as the following.
   (1) Biological synthetic polymers:
The commercialization for the synthesis of biodegradable polymers with biological material monomer as the base and using the chemical process will be unfolded. Products mainly include biodegradable plastics such as PLA (polylactic acid) and PTT (polytrimethylene terephthalate) with a capacity of over 5 000 t/a and PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) with a capacity of over 1 000 t/a.
   (2) Natural biological polymers:
The commercialization for the synthesis of biodegradable natural biological materials with renewable biomass as raw material and using the microbial process will be unfolded. Products mainly include functional materials such as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanotes) with a capacity of over 1 000 t/a, polyamino acids and biological polysaccharides.
   (3) Biological based compounds:
The commercialization for the synthesis of C2-C6 biological based compounds will be unfolded. Products mainly include L-lactic acid with a capacity of over 50 000 t/a, furfural, butanol and biological ethylene with a capacity of over 10 000 t/a, 1,3-propylene glycol, succinic acid and hydroxymethyl furfural with a capacity of over 1 000 t/a.
   The aim of the special fund is to remove core technology bottlenecks restricting the development of the biological material sector, accelerate the commercialization of research, form biological material technology and product standard systems, achieve large-scale production of major biological materials, effectively upgrade international competitiveness of the biological material sector in China and bring sales value of biological materials to RMB20 billion at the end of 2010.