Sarnia-based BioAmber is partnering up on a sweet way to make nylon. The company is collaborating with the University of Toronto on a $5.7 million research project to convert sugar into adipic acid, which is a building block of the silky material. \u201cThe partnership with BioAmber is really crucial for us,\u201d said Dr. Radhakrishnan Mahadevan, head of the university\u2019s BioZone group. \u201cThey can do this at large scale, so that means they\u2019re a great partner.\u201d Funding is coming from Ontario, the federal government through Genome Canada and BioAmber.<\/p>\n
Nylon is currently made from petroleum, and while the process works well it is not environmentally friendly.<\/p>\n
BioAmber has developed a successful way to turn corn syrup into succinic acid, which is used in everything from plastics to paint and food to footwear.<\/p>\n
Using its patented technology to produce the building blocks for nylon could create a second product line for the company.<\/p>\n
Mahadevan said BioZone\u2019s experimental process for producing adipic acid has been in development for five years and is similar to what BioAmber has already perfected.<\/p>\n
He said the goal is to turn a current small-scale reactor into a 1,000-litre reactor within three years, making the process ready for a pilot plant somewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe important thing is that BioAmber has gone through that sequence. They know what it takes to scale up,\u201d said Mahadevan.<\/p>\n
He said his team\u2019s process is cleaner and would use less energy than oil-based manufacturing.<\/p>\n
Unlike traditional petrochemical plants, BioAmber\u2019s $135-million manufacturing facility on Vidal Street doesn\u2019t have a flare stack and uses less energy without greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
As a biotech company that has already reached industrial scale, BioAmber is positioned to apply the results of the research program to developing the next generation chemicals, Genome Canada said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sarnia-based BioAmber is partnering up on a sweet way to make nylon. The company is collaborating with the University of Toronto on a $5.7 million research project to convert sugar into adipic acid, which is a building block of the silky material. \u201cThe partnership with BioAmber is really crucial for us,\u201d said Dr. Radhakrishnan Mahadevan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[6843,5796],"supplier":[1180,14033,370],"class_list":["post-48382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biochemicals","tag-biotechnology","supplier-bioamber-inc","supplier-genome-canada","supplier-university-of-toronto-kanada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48382"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=48382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}