Startup Develops Process That Uses Wood, Agricultural Waste To Make Glycols

Startup develops process that uses wood, agricultural waste to make glycols

17-Jun-16

A Vancouver biochemical startup that developed a process that uses wood and agricultural waste instead of petrochemicals to make glycols, a basic building block for a wide range of products, is now in commercial production, as per Business Vancouver. S2G BioChemicals Inc. began a pilot project in 2012 at the University of BC to test the process, and recently produced its first commercial-scale batch at a chemical plant in the U.S. Earlier this month, it produced 90 tons of glycols from agricultural waste and has sold it to an undisclosed partner, a chemical company that makes a range of consumer products.
“We have taken the work we’ve done in our pilot plant over the last number of years…and we’ve taken those learnings and gone to full commercial production,” said S2G Biochem CEO Mark Kirby. An engineer by training Kirby co-founded the company in 2009. The process he acquired uses the hemicellulose in wood or agricultural waste to make sugars that are then turned into glycols. Glycols, which are currently fossil fuel based, are used to make polyester, plastics, antifreeze and a variety of other compounds. In S2G’s case, the batch of glycols it recently produced in Tennessee has been sold to a chemical company that plans to use them to make resins.
“Future applications would be everything from personal care products (cosmetics) to airplane deicing fluids to plastic precursors,” Kirby said. “There’s a wide range of potential applications for these.” To make its first commercial batch, the company leased a chemical plant owned by Pennakem LLC in Tennessee. Eventually, S2G and its partners plan to build US$25 mln dedicated plant, followed by a second phase with a US$100 mln capital cost. Even with low oil prices, Kirby said the biochemical glycols his company is producing are still cost competitive with petrochemicals. The new process could add a new link in the value-added chain for the forestry sector. “In this particular case, we are using a residue from the (agricultural) industry, but we think in our first commercial plant we would probably use byproducts from the forest industry as our primary feedstock, as per biv.com