Market Evolution

In the near future, Brazil, China and Thailand are expected to become some of the top producers of bioplastics in the world. 

According to a market study published by European Bioplastics on 16 December 2013, the Global Annual Production Capacity of biobased plastics has grown from approximately 1 million tonnes in 2010 to 1.4 million tonnes in 2012, and it is expected to grow to approximately 6.2 million tonnes in 2017 [116]. 

This is in fact still a minuscule fraction (0.5 %) of the total world production of plastics, amounting to approximately 300 million metric tonnes in 2012 and absorbing 8-9% of the total crude oil production (5% directly and 4% for the processing energy). 

A 24% growth rate of biodegradable plastics is observed from 2011-2012 and it is expected that the market will continue to steadily grow up to 2017. 

Adapted from European Bioplastics Annual Report in Global Annual Production Capacity of Biobased Plastics, Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites, University of Hannover,  

In contrast to PHBV, starch-based polymers and PLA, which are primarily derived from renewable agricultural feedstocks during the later 1990s a number of large chemical companies have introduced biodegradable polymers derived from petrochemical 

In 1998, total demand for biodegradable polymers in the United States, Western Europe and Japan reached 18 thousand metric tons valued at over 70 million according to SRI s Chemical Economics Handbook (CEH) [103]. Table 6.10 summarises the 1998 supply/demand situation for biodegradable polymers in the major producing and consuming regions of the world. 

Narayan in Proceedings of the International Composting Research Symposium, Columbus, OH, USA, 1992. 

ASTM D3826-98, Standard Practice for Determining Degradation End Point in Degradable Polyethylene and Polypropylene Using a Tensile Test, 2002. 

Potts in Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Ed., J. Kroschwitz, Wiley-lnterscience, New York, 1984, Suppl. VoL, 626. 

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Fig. 2.1 Market evolution of automotive sensors. Silicon-based sensors are capturing an increasing fraction of the sensor market (adapted from 5])...

It is worth mentioning that nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries have been the first type of portable rechargeable battery to take advantage of this market evolution. If a cumulative value is considered for the sales of Ni-Cd batteries from 1980, one reaches a total value of more than 150,000 tonnes of portable Ni-Cd batteries introduced in Europe between 1980 and 2000 (CollectNiCad - 2000). 

During the nineties, the portable rechargeable battery industry has invested up to 5% of its turnover into the development of alternative sources of portable electrical energy. Figure 2 represents the market evolution of portable rechargeable batteries during the last ten years. In 1999, the total number of cells introduced into the market exceeded... 

Figure 2. Market Evolution of Portable Rechargeable Batteries in Europe (Pb-acid at the bar bottom, Li-polymer on top of...

In addition to market evolution, hardware capabilities consistently double every year or two. A consequence is that, every 3 to 7 years, a system may require fundamental redesign in order to take advantage of the roughly lOx improvement in hardware resources that have become available. 

GRAIMOD (Dossou and Mitchell 2013) is a new tool being developed by ICAM Engineer School for proposing concrete solutions to improve enterprises or organization according to new market evolutions. Nowadays, it contains five modules working around three submodules (Fig. 1). 

Several factors are considered crucial for the future market evolution the degree of acceptance and awareness of functional foods by consumers, the association between manufacturers and academic researchers, and the effects of new regulations for nutrition and health claims. Concretely, the Regulation 1924/2006 will have a great impact on the number of products bearing a claim. We have analyzed European Authority of Food Safety (EPS A) opinions on plant extracts and phytochemicals, including phenolic compotmds, since they can provide lessons for the development of functional foods all over the world. 

General Characteristics, Processability, Industrial Applications and Market Evolution of Biodegradable Polymers... 

Some evidence on the crucial role of stocks and stockholding behaviour in lead price formation and market evolution was presented above. Although, ideally, a survey of lead stocks should include raw materials (concentrates and scrap) and semi-hnished or intermediate products Oike lead piping or batteries), in practice data availability restricts comprehensive analysis to refined metal. Even here, however, data coverage is incomplete and sometimes inconsistent. 

All of the major players are there with one or more joint ventures, and ftiey are doing well, despite current reductions in prices and profits because everyone has joined the game. (Automotive is still a protected sector in China where joint ventures are required.) They have joined the game because the automobile penetration rate is so low and has nowhere to go but up. If competition is bringing down prices, well, that s normal market evolution, but the long term prospects are still the best in the world. 

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