If the bioeconomy is to scale, it needs a cheaper, more consistent source of fermentable sugars, says New Zealand startup Solarferm, which has developed tech to make glucose and other sugars from hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Led by Gabriel James, PhD, and computational and molecular biologist Tancred Frickey, PhD, Solarferm has a two-stage process: First, it uses established thermochemical processes using heat and a catalyst to convert methane/natural gas into a chemical intermediate. It then uses engineered bacteria to convert that intermediate into glucose.
Its first-generation system uses photosynthetic bacteria in stainless-steel fermentation tanks fitted with internal lighting, although the goal is to reduce or eventually eliminate the need for light.
The company is still at the very early stages but James says techno-economic modeling points to price parity or better with fermentation-grade dextrose (around $550 per ton), though he acknowledges this depends on industrial-scale deployment.
“The first sugar that our bacteria make is the foundational sugar for everything: glucose. We want to make the cheapest, cleanest sugar on the planet.”
A reliable source of sugar
As to whether crop-derived sugar is as problematic a feedstock as James claims, he points to the 2023/24 sugar market as a warning sign.
El Niño-linked weather problems in India and Thailand prompted FAO to forecast a 2% drop in global sugar production, pushing sugar prices to multi-year highs, underscoring how small shifts in crop supply can have outsized effects on global sugar markets, says James.
“We’re potentially looking at a major El Niño event coming online this year.”
But if sugar market volatility is the problem, why not find microbes that can directly feed off gases rather than sugar via gas fermentation, or find microbes that can feed off cheaper ag side streams instead of glucose?
Both are viable approaches, but sugar remains the universal feedstock for biomanufacturing, says James. Solarferm’s pitch is not to ask biomanufacturers to redesign their entire production system around gas fermentation or alternate feedstocks, but to give them a more scalable, secure, and potentially lower-cost sugar input.
Deployment and business model
James—who has a background in photosynthesis and carbon pathway engineering—describes several possible deployment models.
One option is to work with energy companies, which already have gas infrastructure and may want to diversify into new product streams. In that scenario, Solarferm could license its bioreactor and strains, while the energy partner builds and operates the sugar-production plant.
Another option is to work with ingredient manufacturers that want a vertically integrated feedstock supply for their biomanufacturing operations. In that scenario, Solarferm’s sugar plant could be built next to an existing fermentation facility, allowing the customer to feed Solarferm’s sugars directly into its own biomanufacturing process.
According to James: “And then there’s a nice closed loop situation where 50% of the carbon dioxide that comes off their fermentation processes can be redirected back into our plant and converted again into sugar.”
Solarferm may also consider owning and operating the bioreactor/sugar-production part of the plant itself if the economics justify becoming a sugar supplier directly, he says.
Rare sugars
Solarferm’s microbes can also produce rare sugars such as allulose and tagatose, which might seem like a more obvious initial focus given their elevated price tag. However, James notes that the microbes first need to make glucose internally as a biochemical stepping stone before they can produce more complex sugars.
If the glucose-producing system is not efficient, the downstream pathway to rare sugars will not be efficient either, says James, who has been working on strain engineering with partners in Australia as part of the RECARB program led by the University of Queensland and backed by energy supplier Woodside Energy.
Market pull
Solarferm has raised a small amount of pre-seed funding and used some non-dilutive funding to support its technical program. It is now preparing to raise a seed round but is still very early stage.
However, it is already getting interest from companies interested in cheap industrial sugars for fermentation, says James.
One such is a multinational dairy company that is concerned about feedstock supply as it looks to scale its ingredients manufacturing business: evidence, he claims, that strategics are “thinking about 10-year feedstock security rather than just near-term sugar prices.”
Further reading:
Saku Biosciences bets on tiny “PicoShells” to solve a big biomanufacturing problem
Could ‘chickpea-sized’ biosensors make biomanufacturing more cost competitive?
Amyris CEO on the post-bankruptcy re-boot: ‘We’re a drastically different company’
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