50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile: Sriya Innovations

Sriya Innovations
Based in: Georgia
2008-09 ranking: Unranked

Business: Business: The company is developing a nano-biorefinery to produce low cost biofuels and very high value biochemicals using its Nano-Catalytic-Solvo-Thermal (NCST) technology. Sriya can fractionate any biomass into pure lignin, xylose and cellulose in minutes and hydrolyze cellulose to glucose in seconds, without using acids, enzymes, bases, catalysts or external solvents. The company converts C5 sugars to furfural, part of the xylose to bio-xylitol, and cellulose to glucose and fructose. The lignin produced is low molecular weight, non-sulfur and reactive; it can be used as is in binder applications or can be further converted to value-added chemicals. The NSCT platform is scalable. The company has assembled an excellent pool of talent and a first-rate Scientific Board of Advisors, which includes Dr. Doug Cameron; Dr. Anthony Collins, Clarkson University; Dr. Phil Savage, University of Michigan; Dr. Michael Matthews, University of South Carolina; and Dr. Robert Brown, Iowa State University; among others, to achieve its goals

Model: Owner-operator.

Past milestones:

1. Obtained $7 and $15 million in private funding led by KPCB in Q4 2007 and Q4 2008, respectively.

2. 6+ inventions in patent process.

3. 100 kg/day plant in operation since Nov 2008.

Future milestones:

1. Install a 3 mt/day pilot plant and generate engineering-scale data for scale up, for $5 million, opening in November 2009.

2. Build a 320 mt/day biorefinery, for $25-30 million.

3. Scale up to 3200 mt/d biorefining capacity.

Metrics: Focus on $6-7/kg xylitol and furfural ($1.7/kg) as opposed to ethanol which is at best $0.5/kg. Use of lignin in phenolic resins and as surfactant at $500-1000/t instead of burning to steam and power, a $50-100/t value at best. Production of very high-value vanillin, erythritol and glycolic acid. Production of ethylene glycol. The company reports that “we will produce sugars at 3-4 cents/lb or ethanol at 50-60 cents/gallon and our capex is < $1/G on multi product basis.”

Sriya quotable quotes: “Collection, baling, transportation, storage and seasonal availability of biomass are a challenge for any biorefinery and this need to be addressed for any commercial success as biomass costs account for 33-50% of final COGS and 33% of this biomass cost is logistics and transportation. Sriya’s process is biomass agnostic and thus capable of using multiple biomass, improving supply chain logistics, year round availability and lower procurement and transportation costs.”

The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.

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50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile: Sriya Innovations

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