GC&E Start-Up Showcase

Formaldehyde in wood resins is considered a carcinogen and leads to a loss of about 1 million years of life annually. Despite this and increased regulations, it still dominates the market due to its low cost and great performance. Lignin is a byproduct of pulp and paper and many biofuel and biochemical processes. About 50 million tons of lignin are produced per year, ~98% of which is burned as low-value fuel.

BUILD’EM seeks to solve both problems by replacing formaldehyde resins in wood products with a lignin-based resin, named BUILD’EM. Initial results indicate BUILD’EM is cost competitive, strength-competitive, water resistant, 50 to 150% lower carbon, similar hot-press times, and a drop-in replacement to avoid new capital equipment.

BUILD’EM is a new technology seeking Seed/Angel Funding.

Therapeutic peptides are booming because they are potent, biodegradable and safer. But their synthesis is not. Every kg of peptide needs on average 6’000 kg of single use N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF), a reprotoxic and fossil-based synthesis solvent. With the entry of ton scale peptides (mainly driven by GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic), that means DMF consumption increase with millions of liters. This is becoming untenable as DMF exposure limits tighten, and peptide demand is growing at double digit rates. Together, that’s incentive to change, but unntil today, there just has not been a greener and high-performing drop-in alternative.
We created a new platform of bio-glycerol based solvents which are stable, safe, cost-competitive and outperform DMF in Solid-phase peptide synthesis, the main route for production of medium-to-long peptides. In addition, we are able to scale down amino acids equivalents excess by 90%, while maintaining performance, which has larger green chemistry and financial implications.
With our new platform of dipolar aprotic solvents, we want to tackle the major and growing DMF – sustainability challenge in the peptide field, and by expansion in the broader chemical industry.

The world is not running out of demand for jet fuel, it is running out of secure, affordable sources of it. Europe’s current crisis, with reserves reportedly down to days of supply, has exposed what energy analysts have long warned: aviation runs on a fragile, foreign-controlled fuel chain with no meaningful alternative. Sustainable Aviation Fuel was supposed to close that gap, yet today meets less than 1% of global demand, not because the technology doesn’t exist, but because most SAF pathways compete for the same scarce, expensive feedstocks that created the problem in the first place.
EcoGrains is building something different: a genuinely new domestic source of jet fuel. We convert contaminated distillers’ grains, a corn ethanol co-product that cannot enter the food supply and is currently discarded, into drop-in SAF using patented microbial fermentation technology licensed from Sandia National Laboratories. By starting with higher-carbon fusel alcohols rather than conventional ethanol, our process requires fewer upgrading steps to reach jet fuel range, improving efficiency and cutting production costs. The output is chemically identical to Jet A, no new infrastructure, no regulatory barriers, no airline resistance.

Backed by $3M+ in DOE funding alongside Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia, EcoGrains is building a distributed, domestically-sourced SAF supply chain that no competitor has commercialized, and that no geopolitical disruption can shut down.

Polyethylene and polypropylene resist biodegradation by design. They have high molecular weight and are chemically inert while being structurally inaccessible to microbial metabolism.

RAWS addresses this through two coordinated catalytic systems incorporated as a masterbatch at 1% loading. A proprietary Time-Control Agent (TCA), a surface-modified molecular sieve, suppresses activation through controlled antioxidant release for 0-72 months. Activation engages when simultaneous temperature exceeding 77^οF (25^οC) and sufficient humidity conditions deplete the TCA reservoir, triggering the Thermal Activation Complex (TAC): a cerium-based redox catalyst cycling Ce ³⁺/Ce^{<span style=”font-size:10.8333px”>4+</span>}, abstracting hydrogen from tertiary carbons in PP and methylene units in PE, initiating beta-scission.
A secondary nanostructured catalyst with ferrocene derivatives sustains fragmentation through oxidative radical pathways, active even under anaerobic conditions. Chain scission continues until the catalyst is consumed, progressively reducing molecular weight to bioaccessible thresholds. End products are CO₂, H₂O, biomass, and mineral salts. Zero microplastics confirmed under independent anaerobic and aerobic verification.

TBD

Green chemistry has an adoption problem. The bottleneck isn’t policy or price; it’s that designed molecules rarely respect the trillions of dollars of industrial equipment they would deploy into, and demand new CAPEX no one will build. ALAi treats drop-in compatibility as a design constraint, not an afterthought, alongside performance, manufacturability, safety, and sustainability. Our closed-loop engine generates against all five lenses, narrows the search with physics-informed AI, validates with an automated wet-lab and COSMO-derived Aspen Plus, and learns from every result. The first molecule out is an amino-acid ionic liquid for refinery CO₂ capture, validated against an SMR flue gas digital twin built with SOCAR (~67% CO2, 83% SO₂ co-capture, ~40% less regen energy than amines, drop-in for existing columns). Anchor-customer deployment is next. Same loop is now running on water treatment and sustainable additives.

ZILA BioWorks is replacing petroleum-based epoxy resins with low-carbon, bio-based alternatives for industrial manufacturing. Epoxies are a foundational industrial plastic used in composites, coatings, and adhesives, yet today they are largely made from bisphenol-A (BPA), resulting in high carbon emissions, limited recyclability, environmental and health risks, and supply chains concentrated overseas. ZILA has developed a drop-in epoxy resin platform derived from plant-based oils that meets performance requirements while increasing bio-content, enabling recyclability, and strengthening domestic supply chains—allowing manufacturers to transition without retooling. Now at pilot stage, ZILA has early traction in the outdoor industry, validation in construction materials and wind energy, and is scaling production following successful pilot runs in industrial reactors. By transforming a widely used industrial material, ZILA is positioned to capture a share of the $14B global epoxy market while accelerating the shift to circular, low-carbon materials

The global coatings and polymer industries rely heavily on fossil-based acrylates, a >9 million ton per year market facing increasing regulatory pressure, sustainability demands, and performance constraints. Circolide (www.circolide.com) addresses this challenge by developing scalable, bio-based butenolide monomers that serve as alternatives to acrylates while offering tunable performance and improved sustainability profiles.
Our technology converts furfural, a renewable secondary feedstock derived from agricultural waste, into alkoxybutenolide monomers using a photochemical oxidation followed by mild downstream functionalization. By applying flow photochemistry and process intensification strategies, this synthesis has been translated from laboratory discovery to continuous production, achieving pilot-scale productivities of 4–10 kg per day. The platform is inherently scalable and designed to meet industrial requirements for efficiency, safety, and cost competitiveness.
The resulting butenolides are structurally comparable to acrylates and can be tailored through side-chain modification to match or exceed performance in coatings, including hardness, solvent resistance, glass transition temperature, and UV-curing behavior. Initial customer pilots and application testing demonstrate compatibility with existing coating and polymer formulations, enabling rapid adoption without major reformulation.
Building on this technological foundation, Circolide has been established to commercialize this production platform and its portfolio of bio-based monomers. By combining renewable feedstocks, scalable photochemical manufacturing, and application-driven molecular design, Circolide offers a practical pathway toward circular, high-performance materials for coatings, polymers, and specialty applications.