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renmatix

Sugar for oil: Renmatix lands BASF as investor

Renmatix is blasting wood chips with supercritical water to create sugar, a building block for chemical and fuels.

The Philadelphia-based company today said that German chemicals giant BASF has invested $30 million in Renmatix as part of a $50 million funding. Existing investors, including venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, also invested.

Renmatix has a unique method for converting non-food biomass, such as wood chips, municipal waste, or grasses, into fuels or chemicals. Methods tried by other companies, including using specialty enzymes and heat-driven chemical processes, have by and large failed to scale up. The result is that … Read more

In 'supercritical hydrolysis,' a new process for biofuels

PHILADELPHIA--Here in a warehouse comprised of little else besides plywood, steel beams, and concrete, bioindustrial startup Renmatix announced a new process that it says allows it to produce cellulosic sugars--from which some types of biofuel are derived--more cheaply than ever.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers investor John Doerr, and others were in attendance here at Renmatix's unfinished headquarters in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia as the company revealed its new process, developed at its facility in Kennesaw, Ga.

Renmatix says its industrial-scale process breaks down cellulose through something called "supercritical hydrolysis," … Read more