World market and biotechnological production of itaconic acid

Abstract

The itaconic acid (IA) world market is expected to exceed 216 million of dollars by 2020 as a result of an increasing demand for bio-based chemicals. The potential of this organic acid produced by fermentation mainly with filamentous fungi relies on the vast industrial applications of polymers derived from it. The applications may be as a superabsorbent polymer for personal care or agriculture, unsaturated polyester resin for the transportation industry, poly(methyl methacrylate) for electronic devices, among many others. However, the existence of other substitutes and the high production cost limit the current IA market. IA manufacturing is done mainly in China and other Asia-Pacific countries. Higher economic feasibility and production worldwide may be achieved with the use of low-cost feedstock of local origin and with the development of applications targeted to specific local markets. Moreover, research on the biological pathway for IA synthesis and the effect of medium composition are important for amplifying the knowledge about the production of that biochemical with great market potential.

Keywords: Bio-based chemicals; Bio-based polymers; Fungal fermentative processes; Itaconic acid; Itaconic acid polymers; Itaconic acid trading market; Sustainable materials.

Fig. 1

Itaconic acid biosynthesis pathway in Aspergillus terreus. Mtt: Mitochondrial tricarboxylate transporter; MFS: major facilitator superfamily proteins; CAD: cis-aconitate decarboxylase; ACO: aconitase. [Adapted from Klement and Büchs (2013) and Huang et al (2014b)]

Fig. 2

Some of the most potential itaconic acid market applications

Fig. 3

Diagram of itaconic acid industrial production by A. terreus

Fig. 4

Number of scientific articles and patent documents selected from the databases Scopus^® and Derwent World Patent Index™, respectively. The documents selection was done considering articles and patents which contained the words “itaconic acid” on the title, published from the initial years available on the databases until 2016. For the article selection, the documents were restricted to the English language. Scientific articles (orange line) and patent documents (blue line)

Fig. 5

Number of scientific articles from the database Scopus containing on the title the words “itaconic acid”, published from 2012 to 2016. Each of the 210 articles was characterized by the main subject related to itaconic acid (IA) synthesis or application: polymer development or application (blue bars), fermentative process development (yellow bars), study of metabolic pathway (orange bars), and the total number of articles in each year (black line)