Itaconic Acid Market Size

Itaconic Acid Market Size

Itaconic Acid Market size was over USD 75 million in 2015, with expected gains at over 16.8% CAGR from 2016 to 2024.
 

Growing concerns over shrinking fossil fuel resources, innovation & developments are being made to produce chemicals from biomass feedstock. Readily biodegradability in soil and non-toxicity are key factor driving itaconic acid market growth.
 

Strong application scope in methyl methacrylate (MMA) production in order to replace petrochemicals may fuel itaconic acid demand. Rising trends towards more environment sustainable products has encouraged the industry manufacturers to adopt biotechnological routes to produce Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). Global PMMA market is estimated to surpass USD 10 billion by 2024 which is likely to encourage industry growth.
 

Mitsubishi Rayon and its subsidiary Lucite International are working on multiple approaches to produce bio-MMA. Lucite has already patented MMA production routes from Itaconic acid and plans to commercialize production and use by the end of 2016. However, there are multiple routes under development and are competitive. For instance, Evonik is also working on two processes which includes multi-catalytic process and metabolic routes. The industry is still at controversial stage which route will win the battle which is largely influenced by production cost.
 

Price drop to make the production feasible and economical enough to replace acetone cyanohydrin in MMA will drive industry demand. Itaconic acid currently has a small market with limited industrial applications.
 

This promising chemical compound blocks providing potential platform for coatings, polymers, biofuels, and other chemical compounds production. Unique properties such as high densities cell growth, robustness, stability, and easy to genetically are major influencing factors which may fuel product demand in several industrial applications including pharmaceuticals, light industry and agriculture.
 

Superabsorbent polymers are recognized as potential segment owing to its ability to replace acrylic acid and to use polyitaconic acid through polymerization. Itaconix, the U.S. based company is focusing to adopt this biotechnological route. However, several companies including Arkema, Cargill, and Novozymes are working on bio-based acrylic acid which may affect the industry growth.
 

Fluctuation in raw material supply such as sugar, glucose, and corn starch may impact itaconic acid market price trend. The addressable market relies on production cost for applications in which the chemical can be used as replacement. Other major chemicals which can be substituted includes sodium tripolyphosphate (in phosphate-free detergent builders’ production) and maleic anhydride (in UPR production).