The $5 trillion international chemical substances sector is a basis of our fashionable financial system. It’s additionally the largest industrial client of oil and gasoline and has the third-largest carbon footprint. Propped up by a long time of inefficient, vitality intensive and soiled processes, the chemical substances trade is underneath intense strain to scrub up its act.
Based seven years in the past, Houston-based Solugen has developed a course of that harnesses biology to provide a spread of merchandise, from plant vitamins to corrosion inhibitors, eliminating the carbon-intensive fossil gasoline feedstocks and unsafe chemical waste streams related to typical petrochemicals.
In late October, the corporate introduced that it’s constructing a brand new 500,000-square-foot biomanufacturing facility, often known as Bioforge 2, in Marshall, Minnesota. Scheduled for phase-one launch within the first half of 2025, Solugen’s second industrial facility marks the start of a brand new period for the chemical substances trade, whereby a variety of the chemical substances might be produced at scale at a single plant with no carbon emissions or waste.
“One of many largest challenges for the chemical trade is dashing up the tempo of innovation to develop new catalysts for desired chemical transformations shortly,” mentioned Karthish Manthiram, a professor of chemistry and chemical engineering on the California Institute of Expertise. “Solugen has confirmed that their platform results in quick outcomes, assuaging this bottleneck.”
Increasing the market
The worldwide inexperienced chemical substances market was valued at $82.5 billion in 2022 and is predicted to have an annual development fee of 12.1 % between now and 2030. But it surely has struggled to provide you with options that may attain industrial scale shortly.
A variety of firms try to alter that. Origin Supplies, which turns wooden chips into precursors of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, generally utilized in plastic packaging, started working its first commercial-scale facility in June. In the meantime, Newlight Applied sciences has been harnessing the ability of microbes at its plant in Huntington Seashore, California, to seize greenhouse gases since 2020. The microbes produce a resin that can be utilized in foodware and textiles. Each startups have raised a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in funding.
Solugen is distinguished by the flexibility of its course of and the pace at which it scales. Whereas rivals produce a restricted vary of merchandise, Solugen claims that its genetically engineered enzymes — organic catalysts that may facilitate the chemical response of 1 molecule to a different whereas remaining unchanged themselves — might be designed to provide a number of molecules.
“The effectivity and scalability of our course of imply we will present our clients with the identical chemistries they know and belief at a decrease value, increased efficiency and rather more favorable environmental profile,” mentioned Tom Richardson, interim chief industrial officer at Solugen.
Chemical processes can take effectively over a decade to go from idea to manufacturing, however Solugen has taken its versatile platform from a napkin-scribbled concept to not one however two industrial scale amenities in seven years.
Accelerated by AI
The corporate had its genesis throughout an innovation growth within the subject of artificial biology — the science that redesigns organisms for helpful functions by engineering them to have new skills. In the present day, utilizing synthetic intelligence, Solugen can design enzymes at a fee unimaginable 10 years in the past.
The method of manufacturing chemical substances is remarkably easy in comparison with conventional petrochemicals. Corn sugar is fed right into a reactor, the place it’s transformed by the enzymes into an energetically favorable intermediate. After that, extra conventional chemical reactions rework the intermediate into the ultimate product.
The third step is purification, the place water and hint impurities are evaporated off to achieve the customer-specified focus.
Whereas a conventional petrochemical course of would possibly flip 50 % of its fossil gasoline feedstock into the specified product, the Bioforge converts about 96 % of its corn sugar feed. The staff goals to push that as much as one hundred pc inside a couple of years, Richardson mentioned.
The entire course of is carbon-negative as a result of corn absorbs carbon from the environment to develop, and the plant itself runs completely on wind vitality.
With the arrival of Bioforge 2, the chemical substances trade lastly has a course of that produces zero carbon emissions and no waste and may make a versatile vary of merchandise. In the long run, Solugen hopes to construct a community of sustainable chemical vegetation that may function a lot nearer to customers than hazardous petrochemicals ever might. All of this, Richardson mentioned, will turn out to be a part of a “decentralized bioeconomy.”
“We envision a world the place you’ll be able to have completely carbon-negative cities the place each single materials you can see, really feel and contact might be produced with Solugen’s chemistry that’s sequestering CO2 from the environment,” Richardson mentioned.
Different firms will begin following in Solugen’s footsteps, mentioned John Cumbers, founder and CEO of the artificial biology skilled community SynBioBeta: “Their success might function a beacon for different startups and innovators trying to harness the ability of biology for industrial purposes.”
