Turning garbage into sugar for fuel – Technology Review

A Renmatix employee pumps sugar made from wood chips at its demonstration plant. It will now explore using its supercritical water-based process with garbage. Credit: Renmatix

For advanced biofuel companies, there are often questions over how much biomass is available to make biofuels and chemicals. But garbage is often in plentiful supply.

Municipal waste hauler Waste Management yesterday announced a deal to explore making chemicals and fuels from trash with Renmatix, a startup which has a low-cost process for converting biomass into sugars. 

The company’s technology uses supercritical water, or water at very high temperature and pressure, to dissolve the cellulose and hemicellulose in organic materials, such as wood chips, into sugar. Once the sugars are produced, the company can use standard fermentation equipment to make ethanol or other chemicals. (See, Use of Supercritical Water Could Cost of Ethanol)

Renmatix is operating a demonstration plant in Georgia using wood chips as a feedstock but says its process works with a range of inputs. In its deal with Waste Management, Renmatix will explore using “urban waste streams” to make sugar, including recyclables, food straps, construction and demolition debris, and pulp and paper waste. Renmatix received a vote of confidence earlier this year when chemical giant BASF invested $30 million in the company to build a large-scale facility (See, BASF Funds Sugar from Wood Startup).

Although it’s a garbage-collection company, Waste Management has many activities in energy. It take the methane gas which comes from landfills and burns it to make electricity or sells it into the natural gas grid. The deals with Renmatix and a handful of other startups, though, are focused on making higher-value fuel and chemicals with waste.