Bio-based industries aim to replace petroleum derived chemicals with commodity chemicals that are produced from renewable raw materials. Many failures are reported due to scale up issues and uncertain estimations of the capital and production cost of bio-based products. Decision making strategies and risk assessment modeling are crucial to decrease risks of losing large investment projects. The objective of this work is to present a probabilistic mathematical model that was developed to quantify the financial risks of commercializing bio-based technologies. Monte-Carlo simulations are employed to estimate the cumulative distribution function of the net present value (NPV) of several platform chemicals. The novelty lies in the fact that a significant number of uncertainties associated with the inherent bio-processes complex behavior and external random factors are taken into consideration. Risk assessment analysis showed that the investment plan of producing single cell oil and iso-butanol via fermentation in large scales capacities is non-viable. On the contrary, the performed profitability analysis indicates very promising results in commercializing methyl-ethyl-ketone, poly(hydroxybutyric acid) and 1,4-Butanediol.

生物基工业旨在用可再生原料生产的商品化学品代替石油衍生的化学品。由于规模扩大问题以及对生物基产品的资本和生产成本的不确定估计，据报许多失败。决策策略和风险评估模型对于降低丢失大型投资项目的风险至关重要。这项工作的目的是提出一种概率数学模型，该模型用于量化生物基技术商业化的财务风险。采用蒙特卡洛模拟来估算净现值（NPV）的累积分布函数）的几种平台化学品。新奇之处在于，考虑了与固有生物过程复杂行为和外部随机因素相关的大量不确定因素。风险评估分析表明，大规模发酵生产单细胞油和异丁醇的投资计划不可行。相反，进行的获利能力分析表明在商业化甲基乙基乙基酮，聚羟基丁酸和1,4-丁二醇方面取得了非常可观的结果。