In California, Lygos has successfully achieved pilot scale production of malonic acid from sugar. A versatile compound, malonic acid was identified by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of the “Top 30 Value Added Chemicals” to be produced from biomass-derived sugar, instead of petroleum.Lygos’ novel manufacturing technology decreases CO2emissions, eliminates toxic inputs and could replace the existing petroleum production process for malonic acid at lower cost and less energy.
Lygos has identified over $1 billion in derivative specialty and commodity chemicals that can be accessed from malonic acid, and developing its fermentation technology is key to enabling these opportunities.The scale-up was performed at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit (ABPDU), which is located in Emeryville, CA.
More on the story.
