Biobased feedstocks as a roadmap to defossilization

Today, nearly 90%^[1] of the chemical industry’s feedstocks are derived from fossil fuels (namely oil, gas, and coal). Although long central to industrial production, fossil-based resources now pose significant challenges for refiners due to their finite nature, contributing to ~6% of global CO₂-equivalent emissions, and geopolitically induced price instability.

As environmental regulations tighten and consumer demand for sustainable products grows, the call to defossilize the chemical industry grows louder. Policies such as the European Climate Law, the U.S. Federal Sustainability Plan, and ISO Net Zero Guidelines are driving companies to adopt low-carbon technologies and renewable alternatives. One promising solution comes from biobased feedstocks, renewable materials derived from biological sources.

"Defossilization" focuses on replacing fossil carbon with renewable or circular sources. This includes plastic waste^[2],[3] and, notably, biobased feedstocks. While the path to defossilization isn’t without its complexities (e.g., costs, technology gaps, and policy inconsistencies), this route offers vast opportunity to lower emissions, reduce dependence on finite resources, and foster innovation across the value chain.

Biobased feedstocks fall into three main categories^[4]:

• First-generation, from edible crops like corn or sugarcane. These are already used in commercial-scale products like PLA bioplastics and bioethanol^[1],[2],[3].
• Second-generation, from non-food biomass such as agricultural residues and used cooking oils. They are gaining wider adoption in industrial applications.
• Third-generation, typically non-land-based sources like algae. These remain in early-stage development due to additional technical and economic hurdles.

As biobased feedstock generations evolve in compositional complexity, their utilization becomes more challenging, yet they unlock essential environmental benefits—reducing food competition and converting waste into value. Evonik Catalysts is actively advancing solutions in this space, proven in second-generation feedstocks via its alkoxide catalysts to produce sustainable biodiesel fuel from waste fats, such as used cooking oil or tallow.

Non-food cellulosic crops and agricultural/forest residues, when used to produce higher-value added bioproduct—such as furan-based chemicals and materials—typically involve more complex and costly decomposition and conversion processes, due to their high cellulose and lignin content. Likewise, even greater innovation is required to scale the use of third-generation sources, including breakthroughs in algae cultivation and conversion technologies, often involving catalysis-biotech integration.

Addressing these challenges requires close collaboration across the entire value chain—including catalyst developers, technology providers, and downstream users—to collectively facilitate the industrial-scale deployment of these non-food biomass derived chemicals and materials. Here, advanced catalysis offers a critical lever to enhance efficiency and economic feasibility.

Evonik’s Next Gen catalysts are proving central to this transformation. By boosting resource efficiency and enabling the use of alternative raw materials, they help transform biobased inputs into fuels, plastics, and specialty chemicals, empowering circularity and reducing reliance on fossil carbon.

Defossilization is not just an environmental imperative but a strategic necessity for the chemical industry and biobased feedstocks, enabled by catalytic innovation, offer a scalable, sustainable path forward. To accelerate this journey, the industry must combine financial incentives, technological progress, and robust cross-sector collaboration, just as it once did with fossil fuels.