USA: Green Chemistry
Occidential Petroleum Invests in Low-Carbon Technology
| Editor: Alexander Stark
Cemvita Factory and Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a subsidiary of Occidental, announced that they have reached an investment agreement. The investment is to advance the development of new bio-engineered pathways that use CO2 as feedstock for sustainable production of intermediate chemicals and polymers.
Houston/USA — Cemvita Factory is a Houston-based biotechnology startup focused on creating economical solutions for a sustainable future. The company’s technology includes a CO2 utilization platform that mimics photosynthesis and other natural processes to produce industrial chemicals and polymers for energy sustainability.
One of OLCV’s strategic priorities is to develop and commercialize CO2 utilization technologies that will complement Occidental’s core businesses and product lines. The investment is part of the strategy to find value in new markets and of becoming carbon neutral. OLCV President Richard Jackson said that the CO2 utilization platform had the potential to create new, sustainable pathways for the bio-manufacturing of our products.
With the investment, the startup plans to demonstrate that their technology can economically scale from test tube to the field. The US company has the goal to take one gigaton of CO2 out of the carbon cycle in the next decade. Cemvita Factory’s bio-manufacturing platform mitigates emissions resulting from traditionally energy-intensive chemical and catalytic conversion processes by operating under ambient temperature and pressure. This same technology is able to turn polymer production into a low carbon activity by utilizing CO2 as a feedstock, a crucial step in building a circular carbon economy. Cemvita Factory is currently working with a number of clients in the energy industry to help them use CO2 as a resource to lower their carbon footprint.
