Greener planet is goal for 3 startups

Dec 16 - Chicago Tribune

If the glut of companies billing themselves as "solutions" providers is any indication, the world has no shortage of problems.

Green tech companies take on some of the most complicated, difficult problems to solve. They tend to be problems created by our mere existence, chief among them our massive demand for energy. The more we rely on energy to power our electronics, our vehicles and our lives, the more pollution we churn into our land, water and air.

The Tribune checked in with three local green tech startups at various stages of development. They haven't changed the world yet, but they're working on it.

COMPANY: LanzaTech

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: Global warming, a huge challenge as energy demand is expected to double within 40 years.

FUNDS RAISED: $100 million

It may sound like sci-fi, but LanzaTech produces gas-eating "bugs" that don't require oxygen to survive.

In April, the company's microscopic bacteria began ingesting carbon monoxide from a steel mill in China. Carbon monoxide goes in one end of the bacteria and ethanol comes out the other.

With a few genetic tweaks, the bug can produce a wide range of fuels and chemicals from gases that companies spend money to get rid of. The idea, says Jennifer Holmgren, the company's chief executive, is to trap nasty gases that float from steel mills, power plants and chemical factories, turning them into products that are useful and profitable.

The company recently inked a deal with Petronas, the national oil company of Malaysia, to develop a modified version of the bug that takes in carbon dioxide and produces acetic acid, a chemical companies need to produce polymers used in plastics.

"Rather than trying to sequester carbon deep into the earth, we will 'bury' it in a chemical," Holmgren said. "In this way, companies can not only comply with emissions reduction requirements, but also generate revenue along the way."

When Holmgren talks about the technology's potential, she pulls up a map of the world, showing partnerships and agreements the company has with companies from Boeing Co. in Chicago and Kansas-based Invista, the world's largest nylon producer, to Indian Oil Co. in New Delhi and Mitsui & Co. Ltd. in Japan.

Out of the company's various projects, the carbon monoxide-eating bacteria are the furthest along in the path toward commercialization. This month, LanzaTech finished a demonstration project for China's largest steel manufacturer, Baosteel, at a plant near Shanghai.

LanzaTech successfully produced the equivalent of more than 100,000 gallons of ethanol per year from just a fraction of the carbon monoxide the company creates in the steel-making process.

"You're literally driving for miles watching this steel mill," Holmgren said, explaining its vast size -- and its potential to produce hundreds of millions of gallons of ethanol per year.

The technology creates a financial incentive to trap the gas rather than flare it, a common practice that produces carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. Through a series of pipes, the gas enters a vessel filled with the organism, which is floating in water. Fuel comes out the back end and is pumped through a distiller to create pure ethanol.

Because of the success of that demonstration, the steel company has ordered the first of what will eventually be three or four units, each about $80 million, that are each expected to produce 30 million to 50 million gallons of ethanol per year. Each unit pays itself back in under five years, Holmgren said.

"We don't want it to be green for green's sake. If it is, no one is going to use it," she said.

With 140 employees worldwide, LanzaTech doesn't have any revenues to report yet. Holmgren said LanzaTech expects to grow to profitability between 2013 and 2015.

COMPANY: Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies LLC

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: Motors that are crucial for everything from renewable energy to electric vehicles are costly, inefficient and contain rare earth metals largely mined in China.

FUNDS RAISED: $1 million

Say the word "motor," and most people think about the one under the hood. In fact, electric motors are ubiquitous; there may be 70 or more motors in your car alone, says Heidi Lubin, chief executive of HEVT. The vast majority contain rare magnetic metals mined in China from materials that produce radioactive waste because they are extracted from bands of radioactive ore.

HEVT is one of a handful of companies worldwide working on technology that eliminates the need for those materials (dysprosium and neodymium) in motors. The technology could also be more efficient than traditional motors, a possible breakthrough with far-reaching implications for everything from renewable energy to electric transportation.

Instead of using rare metals to create a magnetic field, the company sends a pulsation of alternating electrical currents through copper wound around a steel stationary disk.

"You don't have to mine it, you don't have to refine it, and you don't have to magnetize it, insert it and then manage the motors so they don't overheat," Lubin said. "You don't have the problem of radioactive waste in air, land and water, and can keep manufacturing in your country of origin."

The technology is called a "switched reluctance motor" and works with improved efficiency, propulsion torque and affordability, according to the company.

"We've focused a lot on battery technology as we've tried to enable renewable energy and electric vehicles, but that's not the whole story," Lubin said. "If your motor is significantly more efficient, we might be able to make smaller batteries."

The Chicago-based company is a spinoff from the Illinois Institute of Technology and originally founded by Ali Emadi, an expert in hybrid and electric power train design. The company's first commercial effort is for electric bicycles, where its technology can cut the costs of a bicycle motor and control system by 60 percent.

Eventually, HEVT would like to scale up to motors for industry and electric vehicles.

"It's physics, really," Lubin said. "It's just a different kind of way of creating an electromagnetic field."

This month, HEVT won the national grand prize of $250,000 in cash and services as the most promising clean tech entrepreneur at the Cleantech Open, an accelerator that bills itself as the Academy Awards of clean tech. The company is also part of a team led by the University of Texas at Dallas, funded with a $2.8 million grant from the Department of Energy's ARPA-E program to develop electric motors for hybrid pickup trucks.

COMPANY: SiNode Systems

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: Batteries don't last long enough and are heavy.

FUNDS RAISED: $50,000

It always seems to happen right as that important call comes in. Suddenly, the smartphone battery icon turns from steady green to a blinking red harbinger.

SiNode Systems calls it the "red battery of death" and wants to make it a relic.

The six graduate students at Northwestern University who make up the management team of SiNode are licensing a technology -- developed by Northwestern professor Harold Kung with the Department of Energy's support -- that would make it possible to charge a smartphone in minutes and have it last for days.

SiNode's material is a combination of silicon nanoparticles and porous graphene layers, replacing the graphite typically used in a battery's anode (where electrons flow into a battery). The silicon increases capacity, while the highly conductive and lightweight graphene provides structural support for the silicon.

It's also easy to make, which means it wouldn't increase the cost for smartphones and other electronics.

"We can make our material with little more than a high school chemistry set," said Samir Mayekar, an MBA candidate with the SiNode team.

This month, SiNode won first prize in Cleantech Open's energy efficiency category, earning $20,000 in cash and in-kind services. The company has received interest from Hitachi, BASF, Panasonic/Sanyo and Johnson Controls.

The company expects the technology eventually could be applied to larger batteries for electric vehicles.

"Devices really do change the way we live our lives," Mayekar said. "We want to be a part of that revolution, and we want to be a part of the electric vehicle revolution."

jwernau@tribune.com

Twitter @littlewern

___

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com