LAKRIL TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.8

Description

L¥kril Technologies is developing new processes for manufacture of bio-based industrialchemicals. Our lactic-to-acrylic technology provides corn-derived drop-in bio-based acrylic acidand acrylates at cost parity to today's petrochemical acrylics while providing at least 35%reduction in CO2 emissions. Once commercialized our process technology will be constructedand provide high-quality well-paying STEM jobs in rural locations near corn fields similar toethanol plants.Producing sustainable acrylic acid and acrylates brings significant health and welfare benefitsthrough increased sustainability to the $10 billion 6.5 million metric ton per annum acrylicsvalue chain used throughout the superabsorbent polymer paints coatings and adhesives marketswhile increasing economic competitiveness in global markets through new industrial uses for theUS' largest crop.The L¥kril catalyst is FAU zeolite based modified by engineered amines. The work proposedhere during the SBIR with 5-50wt% aqueous solutions of Na+ K+ Ca2+ and NH4+ lactatesolutions will allow the determination of the interplay between cation engineered amine andlactic-to-acrylic yield of the catalyst.This SBIR proposal leverages the dilute aqueous Ca2+ or NH4+ lactate streams available at lowcost in lactic acid bio-refineries due to the at least partial titration of lactic acid necessary to keepsugar fermentation progressing and provides the foundation for scaling and further testing theeffect of impurities in the identified feed stream on our overall process to produce acrylic acidand/or acrylates in a potential follow-on Phase II effort.