AFYREN, Genomatica, Novamont and Chaincraft driving force behind new biotech solutions
Corporate action on climate change is partly driven by a desire to get ahead of upcoming legislation. Reputation is also a major factor: it never hurts to be seen as a leader. But the bottom line is that markets will reward — and eventually demand — climate-friendly products and services, so it is important to understand how each solution can help to reduce or even avoid carbon emissions completely. The bioeconomy, byrenewable raw materials instead of fossil resources, helps mitigate climate change by reducing emissions from fossil carbon in the atmosphere and capturing more carbon in the biosphere.
Innovative biotech solutions
Today, innovative and agile start-ups such as AFYREN, Genomatica, Novamont and Chaincraft B.V. are the driving force behind the introduction of new biotech solutions. Some are developing new technologies to produce chemicals in a more sustainable way. They either use alternative raw materials made from renewable biomass and agricultural by-products or they achieve significant reductions in energy consumption while operating existing production processes. Biobased “green chemistry” uses new methods to offer the same molecules as the conventional fossil-based processes with a significantly lower carbon footprint.
AFYREN
AFYREN offers a wide range of drop-in replacement molecules that are 100% biobased, created in a fully circular production process, and based on a local sourcing approach. AFYREN NEOXY is the first production facility to implement AFYREN’s Technology and know-how. Located at the CHEMESIS industrial platform in Carling Saint-Avold, it produces a family of 7 organic acids. The unique, environmentally friendly technology transforms agricultural byproducts into valuable chemical building blocks, such as acetic, propioninc and butyric acid. With this holistic strategy, AFYREN is able to offer companies from all industries low carbon solutions to help them reach or even exceed their ambitious carbon emission targets.
Chaincraft
Chaincraft is building on nature’s principles and has developed a platform technology to produce sustainable and circular fatty acids for the agrifood and chemical & materials industries. In our unique biotechnological process different types of organic residues are robustly converted into a number of short and medium chain fatty acids, such as butyric, valeric and caprylic acid.
The so-called ‘chain elongation technology’ is ChainCraft’s first commercial scale proven technology. Building upon the wide variety of possibilities which open mixed culture fermentation bring, we are developing other innovative processes and products to be able to contribute to a circular and sustainable chemical industry.
Genomatica
Genomatica uses biotechnology to develop commercial biobased processes to make widely-used chemicals that enable better, more sustainable everyday products. That enables leading brands and partners to offer better food packaging, auto parts, clothing, tires, carpets, cosmetic ingredients, cleaning products and more.
Genomatica has commercialized processes for bio-BDO (for plastics) with partners such as Cargill and Novamont, and for biobased butylene glycol (for cosmetics); Genomatica’s technology drives the world’s first commercial-scale biobased plant for a major intermediate chemical and is working on polyamide intermediates (nylon), and on long-chain chemicals (cleaning products, to replace palm oil as feedstock).
Novamont
Through a new sustainable development model, Novamont promotes the transition from a product economy to a system economy, relying on the valorization of local areas and on products that can redesign entire application sectors, reducing the costs of environmental and social externalities. Novamont is producing biobased oils (MATROL BI), esters for cosmetics (CELUS-BI), biodegradable plastics (MATER-BI) and polymers (ORIGO-BI) and, through its sister company MaterBiotech, bio-BDO.
