Sustainable Plastics - July/August 2022 - 18

value chain collaboration
continued from page 17
looking to scale the concept to
other plants in due course.
Future capacity
As a business model, partnering
with existing facilities is a smart
move. According to Rob Celik,
the bolt-on units developed
by Genecis, once at industrial
scale, will achieve annual PHA
production capacities of anywhere
from 4000 up to 12,000
tonnes, depending on the size
of the biogas plant.
" There are some really large
ones in the Netherlands and in
Denmark that we're very excited
about, as they are three times
larger than the largest biogas
plant in Canada, " he said. He
added that the company recently
incorporated in Denmark,
enabling it to work more closely
with its clients in Europe.
And, like all PHA producers,
Genecis, too will be striving
for price parity with the commodity
resins currently used
by the industry. " It's one of the
reasons we started the company, "
emphasised Luna Yu. " Sugar-based
PHA is prohibitively
expensive - roughly four time
the price of polypropylene. So,
yes, with Genecis, our ultimate
goal is to achieve one-to-one
cost compared with competitive
petroleum-based commodity
plastics. We do believe it is going
to take maybe 5 to 10 years
to get there. But we also believe
that with our technology, we're
have the best shot at getting
there, as no one else can get the
cost reduction we can achieve
by using food waste. "
Differentiation is key?
" Exactly that, " said Yu. " Our approach
is significantly different
from that of others in this space,
as we discussed. But there is
more to it than that. "
Genecis is tackling everything
a little bit differently than
what's done before, added
Celik. " In terms of scaling our
technology, obviously, there's
the decentralised model by integrating
with biogas plants
that we discussed and that will
by programming the bacteria
directly, " he continued.
" Lastly, on the commercial
PHA test specimen.
allow us to create a distributed
production network, which is
something no one else is really
doing, " he explained.
" And in terms of technology
I think we are doing a lot of
things differently. For example,
we're using metabolic engineering
to create more efficient processes,
which is also something
we don't see others doing. Last
year, we created and patented
the first waste-to-PHA recombinant
bacteria, which made it
possible to increase the yield as
well as to offload a lot of the really
expensive processing steps
traction side, too, our focus has
been on customers despite being
an early-stage startup. Rather
than spending time on building
manufacturing facilities and
getting these up and running,
we have worked with customers
from the very beginning, learning
about their needs, building
relationships - and generating
revenue. Currently, we are only
targeting ultra-premium applications,
where we get to work
with major brands and can still
charge a margin. We are already
working with Fortune 500 customers
and, while a relatively
small company, have generated
significant traction, even compared
to some of the major players
we saw during a recent visit
to Silicon Valley. We saw massive
billion-dollar biotechnology
companies down there that
have raised hundreds of millions
of dollars, but I feel confident in
saying that we have more commercial
traction than some of
these very large companies. "
A global leader in the plastics, rubber and urethanes industries, Crain
Communications' Global Polymer Group spans the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe, Asia and Latin America. The group provides news, analysis,
research and marketing services that support the success of business
executives. The group also produces some of the industry's largest trade
shows including the Plastics Recycling Show Europe, the International Tire
Exhibition & Conference (ITEC) and UTECH trade shows.
18
Crain GPG half page for SP July Aug 2022.indd 1
July/August 2022
14/07/2022 10:19
Sustainable Plastics - July/August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Plastics - July/August 2022
