Oakbio Makes Bioplastic at
Cement Plant using CO2 from Flue Gas and Electricity
Milestone for cement industry
and renewable products
SUNNYVALE, CA (July 10, 2012) - Today Oakbio Inc. announced the successful production of
bioplastic polymers in their bioreactor systems. Oakbio's system creates
bioplastic using inputs of cement plant flue gas and electricity. The technology
uses bioreactors driven by non-toxic microbes to capture CO2 and convert it to a
variety of sustainable products directly from the plant's gas
emissions.
This is the latest
development from an on-site research collaboration at Lehigh Southwest Cement
Company's Permanente cement manufacturing plant in Cupertino. Lehigh Southwest
is part of Lehigh Hanson, Inc., the North American operations of the
HeidelbergCement Group, a world leader in construction materials with
approximately 52,000 employees in more than 40 countries.
Chief Scientist Brian
Sefton stated, "Our carbon conversion process yields over 50% bioplastics in
microbe biomass by dry weight from inputs of raw flue gas and electricity. The
type of plastic we make is not only renewable, but biodegradable as
well.
"The effective conversion
of captured CO2 into a valuable bioplastic product represents an important
technical achievement for potential large-scale bioplastics production. This
result also points the way to a new method for greenhouse gas capture, making
emissions gas CO2 a feedstock for mass scale manufacturing."
CEO Russell Howard added:
"At Oakbio we see industrial CO2 as a carbon resource. By converting virtually
unlimited amounts of low cost CO2 available from various industries worldwide
into sustainable products like biodegradable plastics, Oakbio's technology can
answer multiple needs: full scale chemicals production without the use of
petroleum oil or agricultural feedstock; replacement of petroleum oil-derived
plastics with bio-degradable renewable products; and the capture of CO2 to
prevent greenhouse gas accumulation. The ability of our microbes to perform
their magic in cement flue gas is an important step toward achieving this
vision".
About Oakbio, Inc.
Oakbio is a private
technology-based company in Sunnyvale dedicated to sustainable production of
specialty chemicals using novel microbial production processes that combine GHG
reduction with manufacture of sustainable specialty chemicals (see www.oakbio.com).
Contact:
Russell Howard, CEO,
Oakbio, (408) 930-7004; [email protected]
Comments