Cleantechs Go Commercial

Three clean technology companies are moving toward commercial production of chemicals based on renewable raw materials and municipal waste. A joint venture between algal oil firm Solazyme and agribusiness giant Bunge has begun production of renewable oils at a 100,000-metric-ton-per-year facility in Moema, Brazil. The oils will be marketed to customers in the fuels, chemicals, nutrition, and personal care markets. Biobased chemicals firm Gevo, meanwhile, says it is shipping renewable p-xylene, derived from sugar-based isobutyl alcohol, to Japan’s Toray Industries. The p-xylene, made at Gevo’s demonstration plant in Texas, will be a building block for biobased polyethylene terephthalate. And Enerkem, a municipal-waste-to-fuels firm, opened its first full-scale facility last week, in Edmonton, Alberta. The plant is expected to produce 10 million gal per year of methanol and ethanol from waste and will increase the city’s municipal waste diversion rate from 60% to 90%.