The green blogger is going to be a very busy bee for the next two weeks covering the "sold out"
ICIS 1st Worlds Surfactants conference (I'll do the welcome speech too) in New Jersey, and after that, the
3rd Global Helsinki Chemicals Forum in Helsinki, Finland, where I will participate in a roundtable talking about bio-economy (my stomach has butterflies just thinking about this).
Hopefully, my colleague Clay Boswell, who will attend next week's
BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Toronto, Canada, will have some goodies to share after I come back.
For now, here are this week's news roundup:
Cobalt bags $20m funding
Biobutanol developer Cobalt Technologies has closed a $20m series D funding round led by Whittemore Collection Ltd., the investment vehicle of Parsons & Whittemore, a global pulp manufacturer. The funding will help Cobalt build its new 470,000 gal/year n-butanol demonstration plant in Alpena, Michigan.
Purac joins advanced bioprocess consortium
Purac is investigating the participation in a multi-purpose Bioprocess Pilot Facility (BPF) in a consortium of a number of industry partners and universities, including DSM and Delft University of Technology. This Bioprocess Pilot Facility is planned to be built in Delft, The Netherlands and aimed at scale-up research and education for next generation bioprocesses.
More on this post...
Elevance also announced that it has completed a 1m pound/year (500 tonne/year) production run of renewable-based specialty chemicals at toll manufacturing facilities located across the US, compared to a previous 40,000 lb/year (20 tonne/year) production runs. The company has already begun shipping products to customers from the manufacturing facilities.
Is the global bioplastic industry already benefiting from plastic bag ban in Italy? US-based Cereplast thinks so as it currently goes through its construction plans of a 100,000 tonne/year bioplastic facility in Assissi (Cannara), Italy.
Cereplast announced last week the launch of its new bioplastic symbol, which came from a graphic design student at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, -- the winner of Cereplast's "Make Your Mark" competition.
ICIS now officially opens its annual Innovation Awards, which is handled by co-blogger and colleague John Baker. This year, the award has a new category called Best Innovation for Sustainability sponsored by Dutch chemical firm DSM.
This post was from my Q&A with Rivertop Renewables' new president and chief financial officer Jere Kolstad (ex-CEO Jim Stoppert reportedly still continues as an advisor). The company recently announced its plans to start building its 100,0000 lb/year semi-works plant in the Fall this year at its headquarters in Missoula, Montana, as well as expanding equipments at its current laboratories. The company will initially produce glucaric acid at the semi-works facility.
