Kemvera hits biobased milestones

Denver-based Kemvera has completed the process design package for its planned 50,000 tonnes/year commercial-scale plant for biobased acetic acid and ethyl acetate. It has also changed its name from New Iridium “to reflect its vision to scale biobased chemical solutions using domestic agricultural feedstock”.

Kemvera has a proprietary catalytic platform to convert bio-based, CO2-derived feedstocks, such as domestically sourced corn ethanol, into drop-in replacements for petrochemical-derived products. The first target markets are footwear and disinfectants, with others to follow later. To support scale-up, the firm recently completed the design for a 500 tonnes/year pre-commercial demonstration reactor, commissioned a 20 metric tonnes/year pilot reactor and validated its robustness by demonstrating continuous operations. 

“Having reached these milestones, we are entering a new phase of development that brings us significantly closer to customer delivery. This progress represents the culmination of first-principles-based research and engineering into scalable, affordable chemical production using American-grown feedstocks,” said Dr Chern-Hooi Lim, founder and CEO of Kemvera.