UMass Amherst Licenses Biofuels Startup Firm, Anellotech, to Produce Green Gasoline and Other Fuels
Aug. 27, 2009
| Contact: | David Sudolsky 917/664-4540 |
AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst recently granted a biofuels startup company, Anellotech, exclusive global rights to the university’s catalytic fast pyrolysis technology developed by chemical engineer and UMass Amherst faculty member George Huber for producing clean, green “grassoline.”
His patent-pending technique offers a low-cost, single-step process for turning sawdust, woody stalks and other waste biomass into gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil and valuable chemical commodities such as benzene, toluene and xylenes. Huber was featured in a recent cover story in Scientific American magazine and in an online Science Nation video produced by the National Science Foundation. Huber is chair of Anellotech’s scientific advisory board.
David Sudolsky of New York City is the company’s president and CEO. Trained as a chemical engineer, Sudolsky is a specialist entrepreneur who previously helped four other biotech and bioprocessing startups, including one, Dura Pharmaceuticals, that was sold for $1.8 billion, the company said.
For UMass Amherst, Nick DeCristofaro, director of the university’s Office of Commercial Ventures, Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer, said, “Huber’s new technique has been the most sought-after technology the campus has licensed to date. We’ve noted unprecedented interest from a number of quarters. Also, we salute Anellotech’s choice of David Sudolsky to lead the new firm through its next phases, including development of a pilot production plant. This is a very solid business decision.”
As Sudolsky explains, “The University of Massachusetts’ unique catalytic fast pyrolysis process can efficiently convert biomass into valuable petrochemicals, and has the added benefits that it consumes minimal water, requires no hydrogen, produces minimal waste streams, and uses a low-cost catalyst.” Experts say newer, second-generation technologies such as Anellotech’s should produce commercial amounts of biofuel within the next 10 years at a price that can compete with gasoline.
Anellotech plans to build its own plants and license the technology globally, and is now in the process of raising a Series A venture capital round. It is also designing and siting a pilot facility that will process two tons of feedstock per day, working with SPEC Engineering of Burlington, Mass., to assist in pilot plant design. Aspen Plus software will be used for process design simulation. Sudolsky says Anellotech hopes to open a commercial biofuel production plant by 2014.
Using Huber’s rapid new catalytic technology, Anellotech has already demonstrated commercially relevant production not only of gasoline and biofuel precursors but of benzene, toluene and xylene in milligram and gram-scale bench-top reactors. Sudolsky and Huber hope potential investors will take note that global markets for these chemicals are in excess of $50 billion at present.
Huber adds, “Anything you can make from crude oil, in the next 10 to 20 years we can make from biomass. One of the beauties of biofuel is that the products are indistinguishable from those derived from petroleum oil today. People are going to pull up to the gas station and pump fuel produced with this clean, green technology in their cars without necessarily being aware of it. All the changes will be made on the front end, at the biorefinery. Rather than refining crude oil we’re going to be refining renewable biomass.”
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