by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) They call it the Valley of Death, but it’s a complete misnomer. It’s the “nearly impassible Khumbu Icefalls” of Death — filled with chasms, crevasses and painful progress towards the summit in the far distance.
But some make it through. They might have final scale-up and commercial success still to achieve — Everest still ahead of them, with the pitiless Death Zone and the nights on bottled oxygen and negotiating the Hillary Step on a brain starved of oxygen. But still, get through the Icefall and you’re well on the way.
So it’s a milestone worth marking when news arrived from Tennessee that S2G BioChemicals completed a five-week commercial production campaign of fossil-free, bio-based glycols at the Pennakem plant in Memphis. The campaign produced industrial-grade sugar-based glycols from natural, non-food waste. We first reported on the commencement of the run here, in April.
S2G? That’s Mark Kirby’s company — along with a talented crew that hangs its shingle in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Most guys that make it to the summit — that log the hard yards on a mountain bike, talk about mentors and colleagues. The ones that help you push yourself. That’s another common point with the advanced bioeconomy: there’s too much transformation required, across disciples, and too much capital required, to do it alone. It may not always feel like a team sport — there are a lot of lonely moments in start-ups — but it definitely is not a solo sport.
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Bio-glycols can be used as a drop-in replacement for common petroleum-based chemicals currently used in a wide range of consumer and industrial products such as resins, PET/PEF plastic drink containers, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, coolants and antifreeze. Much of the volume were sold to an industrial resin plant; sample quantities of pharma-grade propylene glycol (PG) was reserved for select glycol customers.
How do they do it?
S2G BioChem has a conversion technology based on catalytic hydrotreating that transforms cellulosic sugars to a mix of biochemicals, primarily ethylene and propylene glycol.
Tail on the dog
Finally, it comes down to C5 sugars. As in, here’s an excellent home for them. For those newer to the world of sugars, they come in several varieties. C6s include glucose and dextrose. So, your typical cane or corn sugar. But there are C5s, which can be found in cellulosic sources.
And, here’s a challenge.
“We are now looking for sources for cost-effective C5s,” Kirby told us. READ MORE