Bio-based Epichlorohydrin

• The bio-refining integration study considered the integration of chemical production with biodeisel production on the basis of upgrading the glycerol co-product to either epichloroydrin or 1,3-propanediol.
• Solvay is the world's 4th largest producer of epichlorohydrin. They have developed their epicerol process to convert glycerol to epichlorohydrin.
• With a market size of 1.3 million tonnes, epichlorohydrin is predominately used in the production of epoxy resins and other resins and polymers.
• The key materials to produce liquid epoxy resin are epichlorohydrin and bisphenol A. Bisphenol A is exclusively manufactured from petrochemical resources, where epichlorhydrin can be produced from bio-based glycerol.The increasing availability of  bio-based glycerol from biodiesel production makes it possible to produce bio-based epichlorohydrin.