7 Sep 2015
Tokyo – In a joint research with Japan’s National Research and Development Agency (RIKEN) and Yokohama Rubber Co Ltd., Zeon has succeeded in synthesising isoprene from biomass.
According to a 7 Sept Zeon press release, the three parties have been engaged in joint research for producing synthetic rubbers from biomass since 2013, using the cell design and plant science technologies of the RIKEN Centre for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS).
“As a result, we were able to discover a new method for synthesising isoprene by designing an artificial metabolic pathway using in silico metabolic design technology, used for designing the metabolic pathways of a microorganism at a genomic scale on a computer,” it said.
The group intend to commercialise the technology by the early 2020s.
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