From Lab to Market: Current Strategies for the Production of Biobased Polyols

TLDR

Polyols, the main component of polyurethanes, represented a US$26.2 billion market in 2019 and are projected to reach US$34.4 billion by 2024, driving a shift toward renewable biobased polyols that capitalize on biomass valorization. This Perspective reviews strategies for producing biobased polyols from biomass and examines obstacles to their commercial adoption. The authors survey lignocellulose, lipid, and carbohydrate feedstocks for polyester‑, polyether‑, and polyphenol‑based polyols, then analyze scalability gaps—such as non‑scalable chemistry and limited raw‑material supply—and illustrate these challenges with a detailed scale‑up case study.

Abstract

The global market for polyols was US$26.2 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow up to US$34.4 billion by 2024. Polyols are most commonly employed as the main component in the synthesis of polyurethanes, which is the sixth most important polymer family produced with a global production that reached around 22 Mt in 2019. In the interest of improving the sustainability of the polyurethane industry, for more than a decade the market has undergone a shift toward biobased polyols made from renewable resources. For this reason, the demand of biobased polyols has grown rapidly and offers new opportunities to valorize biomass into technical grade polyols for the polyurethane industry. This Perspective aims to summarize current strategies to produce polyols from biomass and the problems associated with their market implementation. Different natural resources, including lignocellulose, lipids, or carbohydrates for the synthesis of biobased polyester- or polyether-based polyols and polyphenols will be reviewed. Subsequently, the gaps that are currently preventing the transition from academic laboratories to industrial plants will be commented upon, highlighting in particular the use of nonscalable chemical transformations and the lack of competitive biobased raw material suppliers. Finally, a case study of the issues associated with the scale-up process of novel biobased polyols will be discussed in detail.