Calysta Energy and NatureWorks enter R&D collaboration

Calysta Energy and NatureWorks have entered into an exclusive, multi-year collaboration to research and develop a practical, world-scale production process for fermenting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into lactic acid, the building block for Ingeo™ lactide intermediates and polymers made from renewable materials.
Calysta Energy based in Menlo Park, Calif., U.S.A., is developing a new biological gas-to-liquids (BioGTL™) and biological gas-to-chemicals (BioGTC™) technology using methane as a new feedstock for high value industrial chemicals and transportation fuels.
Determining the feasibility of methane as a commercially viable feedstock for lactic acid may take up to five years, according to NatureWorks.
Currently, Ingeo relies on carbon from CO2 feedstock that has been fixed or sequestered through photosynthesis into simple plant sugars. NatureWorks’ flagship facility in Blair, Neb., uses industrially sourced corn starch, while its second facility being planned in Southeast Asia will use sugar cane. The research and development collaboration with Calysta Energy relates to NatureWorks’ strategic interests in feedstock diversification and a structurally simplified, lower cost Ingeo production platform.
NatureWorks is jointly owned by PTT Global Chemical, Thailand’s largest chemical producer, and Cargill, an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services.