Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) has achieved production-scale manufacturing of liquid crystal polymer (LCP) that contains a portion of monomer derived from biomass feedstock (bio-based LCP). As a global supplier in the LCP market, the Company is preparing a mass production system for bio-based LCP leveraging biomanufacturing technology. It also plans to begin providing customers with samples obtained from this production-scale manufacturing.
LCP is a type of super engineering plastic that offers excellent heat resistance and flame retardancy. Its outstanding fluidity, in particular, makes it well-suited to a wide range of applications, from electronic devices such as smartphones to automotive components and office automation equipment. While most of the raw materials used to produce LCP have traditionally been derived from fossil resources, there is growing demand for shifting to biomass feedstock and reducing the carbon footprint in order to achieve a sustainable society.
In response to rising customer demand, Sumitomo Chemical has been advancing the development of bio-based LCP. In June 2025, the Company established technology to mass-produce the material and has since been advancing studies to scale up this technology. It has now confirmed through production-scale manufacturing that it can produce LCP partially containing biomass-derived monomers at a quality equivalent to that of LCP made with conventional fossil-based feedstock.
The manufacturing process to produce the bio-based LCP used by Sumitomo Chemical adopts a segregation approach, in which biomass feedstock and non-biomass feedstock are kept completely separate from each other during production. This makes it possible to clearly quantify the amount of biomass feedstock included in the final product. There is also another approach, known as mass balance, in which biomass feedstock and non-biomass feedstock are mixed together, and the characteristics of the biomass feedstock are allocated to part of the product output in proportion to the amount of biomass feedstock used. Sumitomo Chemical will assess the characteristics of each approach to use the method that best meets customer needs.