The 40 Hottest Technologies of 2018 – as voting gets underway, the nominees in depth
Lygos organic acids technology platform
What does it do, how does it work, who is it aimed at?
Lygos engineers microbes and develops the supporting manufacturing technologies to cost competitively produce organic acid chemicals, compounds that are historically difficult and expensive to produce petrochemically but that can be manufactured efficiently using biology. Lygos has developed a full-stack capability to manufacture organic acids microbially. Lygos technology platform includes microbe optimization, fermentation process development, organic acid purification, and lastly, post-biological conversion of organic acids to value-added products. The technology platform is built around Lygos low pH yeast, which can efficiently convert sugar to organic acids under conditions of low pH and high product titers. To accelerate R&D, a suite of microbial engineering tools have been developed that enable engineering to proceed at a rate on par with more well-characterized microbes. The technology platform also includes organic acid fermentation and purification technologies, delivering an integrated process necessary to achieve cost-competitive manufacturing. One example is development of strains and fermentation conditions enabling separation of biomass growth and product formation (i.e., a two-phase fermentation).
Competitively, what gives this technology an edge?
Lygos uses a structured computational approach to identify organic acid products a) that are costly and environmentally challenged via petrochemical routes, b) where biology offers shutdown economics vs. petrochemical routes, and c) that have high growth potential by addressing long-standing challenges in performance materials systems. As an example of delivering this vision, Lygos flagship Bio-Malonates program has a fully loaded cost structure lower than current petrochemical variable cost (achieving shut-down economics). The microbial process also eliminates toxic cyanide and chlorine chemistry used in the current manufacturing process practiced exclusively in China. Lastly, looking downstream to the material applications space, Bio-Malonates allow substitution of toxic reactive monomers (e.g., isocyanates) while concomitantly addressing long-standing industry needs such as eliminating high-energy ovens for certain coatings.
What stage of development is this technology at right now?
Lygos malonic acid technology has been successfully scaled at multiple pilot or commercial plants and tonnage quantities of Bio-Malonates have been delivered to strategic customers. Lygos is currently exploring partnerships across the value chain to accelerate launch of commercial operations for the Bio-Malonates program. Lygos organic acids platform is now being applied to produce additional organic acid products, including lactic, aspartic, and glycolic acids, among others.
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