One seldom thinks about how many everyday products contain chemicals that have so far been produced from crude oil or palm oil, which are harmful to the climate. For example surfactants: soap-like substances that help detergent remove dirt from the plate and dispose of it in the water.
The chemical group Evonik is now converting production in a first, big step: The Essen-based company is building a new plant for more than 100 million euros that produces surfactants from natural sugars. Evonik has now announced this. This is the world’s first production facility of this size for bio-based surfactants. A large buyer of the chemicals is the Unilever group, known for brands such as “Dusch das” or “Sun” detergent.
The use of biomass – in this specific case corn from European cultivation – is one of the ways in which the chemical industry can become less dependent on fossil raw materials such as crude oil. But this also harbors a risk: “We have to make sure that our demand for sugar doesn’t mean that we compete with food production,” says Harald Schwager, Deputy CEO of Evonik. “If we ferment corn waste in the future, this risk will no longer exist.”
The new plant is to be built at an existing Evonik site in Slovakia. Biotechnologists have been working on the alternative surfactants there for more than ten years. “When the colleagues started running back then, these topics weren’t really in vogue,” says Schwager. In the meantime, the demand is rising sharply. “The market for bio-based surfactants is expected to grow to around one billion euros over the next ten years.” Of course, this would still only be a fraction of the entire world market for surfactants, the volume of which Schwager puts in the double-digit billion range.
The customer Unilever has so far used the alternative surfactants – from a much smaller test facility – in detergents that it sells in Vietnam and Chile. “Unilever’s market tests have been successful so far,” says Schwager. “We also sell all the organic surfactants that we produce at Evonik.” Unilever says it wants to replace all fossil carbon in its cleaning products with greener resources by 2030.
Evonik’s new plant is scheduled to go into operation in two years. The group, which also sells specialty chemicals to the car and pharmaceutical industries, temporarily lost some of its value on the stock exchange on Friday. The Unilever group with roots in the Netherlands and Great Britain is listed on the stock exchanges in Amsterdam, London and New York.