Platform chemicals from crops

Abstract

As industrialists and academics try to peer into the future of the chemical industry, many different scenarios are created and argued over. What many agree is that society will continue to need the products of the chemical industry to deliver the quality of life expected by the developed world and aspired to by the developing world and that, however the industry is structured, we will do things very differently. The reason is simple: we cannot continue to consume the resources of the planet at the rate we do today. If everyone enjoyed the lifestyle of North Americans we would need the resources of three planet earths.