more than a month. Best to think of it in terms of H2O2 turnovers per enzyme. Imagine if we made a new enzyme that had 10x faster turnovers but a 5x lower lifetime. Assuming we could still keep up with its oxygen…
Thanks so much for this advice, very helpful!
Well our current facility takes up ca 2000 square feet and has sufficient capacity for our new consumer product launch, it really depends on what you want to do with the peroxide. If you want to compete on price against…
haha yes, we do hear recurring revenue here. Enzymes are indeed fragile relative to metals and have limited lifetimes. However, even metals like palladium leach, sinter, get poisoned, etc. In the current process, many…
At scale, our technique is economically viable on its own (but subsidies would always be nice I suppose). Currently though, we are on a pilot scale so we cannot yet compete on volume, hence our gtm strategy of…
No worries, I will do my best! Yes, peroxide from any source can cause explosions, but usually only at high concentrations in water. At low concentrations (below 8%) metal contaminants, especially precious metals like…
thanks so much!
Yes! Enzymatic chemical production supplanting traditional fermentation is why Solugen exists. Historically, enzymatic production is used in only 3% of all chemical production processes. However, with CRISPR/Cas9 and…
agreed! We are working on this one, thanks!
thanks, I think we need to do a better job at differentiating between hydrogen peroxide the molecule vs. the hydrogen peroxide production process. We'll update this section today so that it hopefully is more clear. Here…
yep, sugars have more internal energy than peroxide (you can just add up all the bond enthalpies for a quick estimate). Peroxide is used in fuels because 1.) it is much easier to activate than sugars because it is…
these are some great questions! kW/kg is really the magic number but very difficult to extract precisely (we do have estimates though from energy balance calculations). A more qualitative way to look at energy cost…
Thanks! We are finding that sub-ambient temperatures are working the best (ca. 10-20 celsius). For improving reaction rates, elevating pressure is much less energy intensive than elevating temperatures, and is extremely…
haha we talked to some rocket companies, and it isn't an area we plan to enter soon, but technically yes we could! Even with the current anthraquinone process, hydrogen peroxide is still a much "greener" monopropellant…
Thanks, this is Solugen's biggest goal!
Our process doesn't produce water. The H2 comes from starch and the O2 is taken from the air. Catalysts are self-regenerating, although enzymes do naturally degrade over time.
Yep, this is correct! It largely depends on the country's electricity costs vs. access to natural gas. In some instances, rather than methane steam reforming, dry methane reforming is also used. Currently, almost all…
Currently, the H2 comes from waterplitting that occurs in the photosystem II of plant cells. We are now working on a system where the H2 comes from bulk water electrolysis, which is now more efficient than plant cells
Great question! The reaction is actually thermodynamically downhill and spontaneous (delta G less than zero). The current manufacturing processes use palladium catalysts that do have an activation barrier that requires…
Hey! We're really excited too. The biggest challenge with reactor design is getting excellent oxygen mass transfer (called the Kla "Kay el aye"). Typical fermentation reactors see a background dissolved oxygen…
more than a month. Best to think of it in terms of H2O2 turnovers per enzyme. Imagine if we made a new enzyme that had 10x faster turnovers but a 5x lower lifetime. Assuming we could still keep up with its oxygen…
Thanks so much for this advice, very helpful!
Well our current facility takes up ca 2000 square feet and has sufficient capacity for our new consumer product launch, it really depends on what you want to do with the peroxide. If you want to compete on price against…
haha yes, we do hear recurring revenue here. Enzymes are indeed fragile relative to metals and have limited lifetimes. However, even metals like palladium leach, sinter, get poisoned, etc. In the current process, many…
At scale, our technique is economically viable on its own (but subsidies would always be nice I suppose). Currently though, we are on a pilot scale so we cannot yet compete on volume, hence our gtm strategy of…
No worries, I will do my best! Yes, peroxide from any source can cause explosions, but usually only at high concentrations in water. At low concentrations (below 8%) metal contaminants, especially precious metals like…
thanks so much!
Yes! Enzymatic chemical production supplanting traditional fermentation is why Solugen exists. Historically, enzymatic production is used in only 3% of all chemical production processes. However, with CRISPR/Cas9 and…
agreed! We are working on this one, thanks!
thanks, I think we need to do a better job at differentiating between hydrogen peroxide the molecule vs. the hydrogen peroxide production process. We'll update this section today so that it hopefully is more clear. Here…
yep, sugars have more internal energy than peroxide (you can just add up all the bond enthalpies for a quick estimate). Peroxide is used in fuels because 1.) it is much easier to activate than sugars because it is…
these are some great questions! kW/kg is really the magic number but very difficult to extract precisely (we do have estimates though from energy balance calculations). A more qualitative way to look at energy cost…
Thanks! We are finding that sub-ambient temperatures are working the best (ca. 10-20 celsius). For improving reaction rates, elevating pressure is much less energy intensive than elevating temperatures, and is extremely…
haha we talked to some rocket companies, and it isn't an area we plan to enter soon, but technically yes we could! Even with the current anthraquinone process, hydrogen peroxide is still a much "greener" monopropellant…
Thanks, this is Solugen's biggest goal!
Our process doesn't produce water. The H2 comes from starch and the O2 is taken from the air. Catalysts are self-regenerating, although enzymes do naturally degrade over time.
Yep, this is correct! It largely depends on the country's electricity costs vs. access to natural gas. In some instances, rather than methane steam reforming, dry methane reforming is also used. Currently, almost all…
Currently, the H2 comes from waterplitting that occurs in the photosystem II of plant cells. We are now working on a system where the H2 comes from bulk water electrolysis, which is now more efficient than plant cells
Great question! The reaction is actually thermodynamically downhill and spontaneous (delta G less than zero). The current manufacturing processes use palladium catalysts that do have an activation barrier that requires…
Hey! We're really excited too. The biggest challenge with reactor design is getting excellent oxygen mass transfer (called the Kla "Kay el aye"). Typical fermentation reactors see a background dissolved oxygen…