Invista and LanzaTech to cooperate for bio-based butadiene

The companies will collaborate on projects to develop one-step and two-step technologies to convert industrial waste gas carbon monoxide into butadiene. Initial commercialisation is expected in 2016. The cooperation will initially focus on the production of butadiene in a two-step process from LanzaTech CO-derived 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BDO). A direct single step pro­cess will also be developed to produce butadiene directly through a process of gas fermentation, said the companies. Invista and LanzaTech will also collaborate on the development of tools that will allow the extension of this technology for the direct production of other industrial chemicals, including nylon intermediates, from carbon monoxide containing waste gases, utilising LanzaTech’s gas fermentation technology and proprietary biochemical platform. Invista is building internal biotechnical capability to develop biological routes to its products and feedstocks.

LanzaTech’s 15,000 gal/year pilot facility at a steel mill in New Zealand produces ethanol and 2,3-BDO from waste carbon monoxide gas. In Shanghai, China, LanzaTech’s 100,000 gal/year demonstration uses waste gases from a Baosteel steel mill to produce ethanol.