Renmatix (which recently raised another round from BASF and Kleiner Perkins) has a unique method for converting non-food biomass, such as wood chips, municipal waste, or grasses, into fuels or chemicals. Methods tried by other companies, including using specialty enzymes and heat-driven chemical processes, have by and large failed to scale up. The result is that nearly all biofuel, such as ethanol, is made from corn or sugar cane.
Like others, Renmatix first creates sugar water, which is then fermented in standard equipment to make ethanol or other chemicals. Its process first dissolves wood chips in water and then exposes that slurry to high temperature and pressure. That breaks off some of sugars found in the hemicellulose of the plant. A second step at higher pressure and temperature then converts the rest of the cellulose into sugars.
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