Wasted Foods to Chemical Manufacturing

Society wastes tons of food during production, processing, transporting and retail. Wasted foods ends up in our landfills where slowly decompose releasing toxins into the air and waterways. Recovering some of the unwanted foods can help mitigate the food waste tonnage. Yet, the use of recovered foods in value adding processes goes a long way in promoting the health and wellbeing of the society. We are proposal the recovery of 100ton of food waste annually and using the collected wastes as the primary feedstock for manufacturing short chain alkanoate salts, esters, and ionic liquids, all green products, which can used in heat transfer, dehumidification, snow melting, clean hydrogen fuel cells, catalysts, chemical reagents, etc. 

The landfill disposal of municipal solid waste is a growing challenge in cities and states due to declining landfill space, high disposal costs, and risks to public and environmental health. Yet relying on landfills for waste management is a costly and environmentally questionable exercise. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, each person in the US generates nearly 2.3kg of food waste per day. Of the 260 million tons of municipal solid waste generated annually in the US, only about 35% is recycled or composted and rest piles up at the landfills. With careful planning and scientific intuition, the municipal solid waste can gain from a view that looks at waste, not as a nuisance, but as a valuable resource. In fact, there is currently significant need to supplement the feedstocks for chemical production with sustainable biomass resources to ensure long-term availability of the finite petrochemical oil. Hence, the sustainability in chemical manufacturing can be enhanced by supplementing the depleting fossil raw materials such as crude oil, natural gas and coal with renewable food wastes that are generated daily in large quantities. 

Since the generation of catering, food manufacturing, and retail food refuse is unavoidable, the establishment of food recycling and recovery technologies is highly important in the sustainable waste management agenda to ease the cost and environmental burden on municipalities. BioFuran Materials seeks to collect about 100 ton/year of wasted food and systematically transform it into high-value chemicals, an approach that fits well within the field of green chemistry. Food wastes contain a complex mixture of sugars that can be broken down into several high-value products including short chain alkanoic acids (SCAA), such as formic acid. Our food waste-to-chemical technology will not interfere, but complement, the mature options, including anaerobic digestion, composting, and animal feed production, which are commonly practiced for food waste recycling across the world.

Although this project will be implemented at lab-scale first, producers of food wastes, municipalities, and users of waste-derived chemical products will experience a range of economic, environmental and technological benefits. On food waste utilization alone, the major beneficiaries will include the bakers, retailers, food rescuers, and chemical manufacturers. Overall, there are six benefits of recycling and repurposing wasted foods:

1.       It reduces the cost and the amount of food waste requiring disposal from retailers, bakeries, coffee shops, etc.

2.       It provides employment opportunities and new revenue streams for the collectors and users of food wastes. 

3.       Pollution control and waste management benefit all community members living in close proximity with producers 

4.       Diverting food wastes from landfills reduces freshwater pollution since all process wastewater will be disposed through a professional waste management company. In addition, the collection of food wastes from waste-producing  operations improves the sanitary conditions.

5.       Reduces greenhouse gas emissions through diversion of a large portion of organic component of solid waste from landfill where disposed baked often decompose releasing greenhouse gases freely into the atmosphere

Food loss, dwindling landfill space and pollution are key issues to be addressed by this work. If unwanted food is saved from being dumped in landfills and is used produce materials that can ploughed back into the society to promote good healthy lives, it is expected that this project will benefit communities around Allegheny County PA, where most of the unwanted foods will be collected. We plan to work with at least 50 bakeries, food processers, food rescuers and retailers around Allegheny County PA during the demo phase of this work.

The pollution problem continues to haunt society today and may not go away if society does not change their view on waste, particularly food waste. As affluence continues to grow across the globe, more food gets wasted as people spend more on freshly produced foods. Unfortunately, this leads to more nutrient-rich foods being dumped at landfills. As it stands, most food items get dumped after a day or two on the shelves. As more food finds its way to landfills daily, there is an urgent need to craft a platform that cuts the landfill route and redirect unwanted foods for other good uses. Food rescuers have attempted to do this but they're forced to screen the dumped foods and make sure the food is fit for human consumption, which implies they still dump a large portion. Animal feed processors attempt to take as much of the wasted food but are often discouraged by molds which are harmful to animals. Well, BioFuran Materials process, is a nonselective process; all wasted foods are treated equal and are processed the same way. Our chemical process is not affected by molds. As a result, our process seems to be the most ideal.

Our process is divided into four sections; physical pretreatment, Chemical pretreatment, Chemical conversion, and Product synthesis. 

First, the collected wastes, which come in in mixed form, and sometimes packaged, have to undergo physical pretreatment where any packaging material is removed and separated by the separator equipment. At the same time, the foods are milled into granular powder and depending on the moisture content, or if storage is necessary, the powder may be dried.

Second, the powder undergoes chemical pretreatment in reactors to chemically breakdown large biomolecules into simple molecules. At this stage, all residues are eliminated.

Third, small molecules are chemically transformed into organic acids, which are isolated purified, and stored for on-demand uses.

Fourth, organic acids are converted into ionic liquids, esters, or metal salts, which BioFuran Materials sell for profit.

The beauty of the these processes is that they can be run in batch, semi-batch, or continuous mode, providing the flexibility required an industrial process.

Our food waste-to-chemicals has existed in different approaches particularly based on the target raw materials or products. The use of food to make chemicals is well-known. The sugars in sugarcane, beets, and other plants have tradionally been used to make alcohols, glycols, etc. Today, DuPont and Avantium, for instance, uses corn-derived sugars to make furan molecules that later transformed into renewable plastics. Our technology borrows from the same concept of using food sugars to make chemicals. However, our process shuns the use of edible items as chemical feedstocks. Instead, we chose to use foods that gets rejected along the food value chain and are right a point where they just to be send to landfills to cement thier rejection. We save these foods from thier final demise and afford a new food value chain pathway which is well positioned to transform how society views rejected foods. Also, by avoiding edible foods, we avoid the food vs 

The associated petrochemical resource stress, price volatility, as well as environment pollution effects of petroleum feedstocks necessitates a transition towards a circular bioeconomy based on renewable resources such as biomass. William Rathje, the Director of the famous Tucson Garbage project, who studied the contents of Tucson, AZ residents' waste to examine patterns of consumption, once said “There was no ways of dealing with it that have not been known for thousands of years. These ways are essentially four: dumping it, burning it, converting it into something that can be used again, and minimizing the volume of material goods – future garbage – that is produced in the first place.” This statement provides a clue on what society can do better when it comes to food waste management, where the generation of catering refuse is unavoidable, and thus, establishment of recycling and recovery technologies is highly important in the sustainable waste management agenda to ease the cost where tipping fees can reach $70 per metric ton in Maine, for instance, and exceed $100 in other areas of the US. BioFuran Materials plans to come adjust the way food waste generators handles their waste. Since we foresee creating so much value from zero-value wastes by transforming them into high value products, we believe we can pay food waste producers a nominal fee to collect their waste. This approach will certainly shake up the food value chains; dumping of unwanted foods will cease, waste producers will take better care of their wastes, their operations will be sanitized, pollution will diminish significantly, and the societal perception on wastes will quickly change.

BioFuran Materials is currently working with Food Waste Wrangler on the supply of restaurant, coffee shop, and bakery food waste. We are currently negotiating with 412 Food Rescue to access some of their rejects before they send them to the landfill. These two suppliers should provide us with roughly 200 to 400 gallons of food waste per week which is sufficient for our process development operations. In 2021, we expected to increase the number of food waste suppliers to 12 as we improve our operations and scaleup. By 2024, we expect to be servicing about 50 food waste producing operations across Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania. 

The broader impact of this food wastes-to-chemicals business is the advancement of U.S. green chemistry industries that allows America to lead in the commercial manufacturing of renewable chemical building blocks. At national level, our operations should displace at least 2% of corrosive halide, sulfate, and nitrate salts with safer, biodegradable short chain carboxylate salts. Hence the successful deployment of a food waste-based chemo-refinery operation will fulfill two strategic goals: displacing nonrenewable raw materials and providing economic incentive to support a robust chemo-refining industry. We expect our distinctive waste-to-chemicals technology to contribute positively to the growth of specialty carboxylate chemicals market with wide applications in textile, health care, cosmetics, detergents, fuels, sensors, etc. At local level, our technology will breed new areas of economic growth through the creation of new manufacturing industries and employment. Within the Allegheny County communities, the BioFuran Materials operations will provide an opportunity for local students to get summer job opportunities in an industrial setting. To this end BioFuran Materials has engaged the Beaver Valley Launchbox of Penn State Beaver to recruit interested students for summer jobs. Our facility will prioritize the recruitment and training of graduate, undergraduate and high school students in targeted research affiliated with a startup.

There are several potential barriers to the food waste-to-chemicals technology and the market entry for short chain carboxylate salts. The key barriers include high startup costs (close to $500,000), high marketing costs, early-stage brand recognition challenges, overcoming incumbency of existing chemistries, the lack of capacity to compete with established chemical manufacturers, the cost of product portfolio development, the misalignment of supply chains, and the de-risking to compete in the metal salts market. Key capital equipment such as the food waste separator costs about $120,000 and three 40L reactors costs about $90,000

Beside capital equipment purchasing hurdles, the analysis of raw materials and products, particularly when outsourced, is not cheap. NMR analysis of single sample costs $75. FT-IR and GC-MS analysis cost about $350 per analysis per sample. Elemental analysis, focusing on the basic CHN costs about $100 per sample. These metrics clearly show that quality control backed by traditional synthetic chemistry analytical tools are not cheap. 

On the product marketing side, educating clients on our technology and the brand is an important task which is brings with it unique challenges. The biggest burden will be to clearly explain the benefits that outweighs the cost as is typical when new products are introduced. 

Like many startups, the BioFuran Materials team is plaqued by poors numbers and skill set. Dr. Gwengo brings the sysnthetic chemistry background, Mrs James brings the restaurant amenties and food flow knowledge, which when combined to ideal for process development. Adding more scientists and business personnel is beneficial.

BioFuran Materials is looking at several options for funding their operations. The first option involves applying for SBIR / STTR funding. The second option is to attract investor funding. Here, BioFuran Materials is strongly keen on landing a sweat equity Co-Founder, particularly with a strong business development expertise. 

To overcome market entry challenges, BioFuran Materials plan to enter into joint development agreements with research-driven customers to accelerate market adoption of our short chain carboxylate salts. 

Depending on funding availability, BioFuran Materials plans to invest in critical in-house testing capabilities such as FT-IR, GC-MS, TGA, and Elemental analysis that the company routinely use for product quality control. This will allow us to complete the proof-of-concept phases in-house and eliminate the high cost of outsourced analytical testing.

BioFuran Materials is run by two fulltime non-salaried employees. We have engaged a contractor, Zero Waste Wrangler, to supply food wastes from coffee shops and bakeries. BioFuran Materials uses Carnegie Mellon University's NMR facility for product, intermediate, and raw materials analysis. We also use the University of Pittsburgh Nanofabrication and Characterization laboratory for FT-IR and Mass Spec analysis. For elemental analysis, we send samples to Robertson Microlit.

Dr. Gwengo, the Principal Scientist and technical lead, has several years of experience developing green approaches for chemical manufacturing and energy harvesting. In 2011, he developed molecularly organized solar harvesting materials. Between 2011 and 2015, he led a team of researchers in the development of a chemical method for converting molasses, a sugar processing residue, into two chemical building blocks that are useful for generating bioplastics and pharmaceutical drugs. Since 2015, he has led efforts to green the design of printable liquid metal inks that have now been successfully integrated into futuristic e-textile applications. Dr. Gwengo has produced 5 patents in the green liquid metal inks space. In 2019, Dr. Gwengo decided to extend his green perspective on producing new materials to the production of important chemicals from non-value, rejected foods.

BioFuran Materials is working with Zero Waste Wrangler, a food waste recycling company, to identify and collect starch-rich food wastes that BioFuran Materials processes into chemicals.

BioFuran Materials works with Dr. Angela Fishman, a sustainability professor from PSU Beaver, on mobilizing food wastes around south western Pennsylvania.

BioFuran Materials is also getting professional business advise from Will Wooten from Penn State SBDC and Rondon Brent, a senior consultant from the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute.

For online marketing, BioFuran Materials is working with PGreen Design and Design Eminent. These organizations already helped us develop a logo and company website. Design Eminent provides web hosting.

On customer discovery, BioFuran is working with Dr. Calistor Nyambo, the Global Project Manager at SC Johnson as well as Dr. Samuel Emelife, a Clinical therapeutics consultant. These two are working to develop home & garden and pharmaceutical application / market use cases for BioFuran Materials products.

Our target customers are in the agrochemical, academic, pharmaceutical, road & aviation, fracking, municipals, and refrigeration industries. BioFuran Materials will reach these customers through academic researchers, process engineers, scientists, and new product developers, particularly those with an interest in drop-in-substitutes for traditional inorganic salts. BioFuran Materials currently listing their first product at the Amazon and ChemDirect portals. If necessary, BioFuran Materials may also leverage the wider network of chemical wholesalers such as Brenntag, Barber’s Chemicals, and Palmer-Holland Chemical Distributor, Knowde, Applied Industrial Technologies, and Right Patch Industries. These established distributors already have Supplier Diversity Programs reserved for startups. BioFuran Materials will exploit such programs to gain quick visibility on potential customers. In the Coatings and Paint market, the primary customers will include Sherwin Williams, Valspar, PG, Covestro. In the ink market, the local customers include Konica Minolta, K&K Supply, Flint Group, Liquid X Printed Metals, and Never-Ending Ink. Having worked for a printed electronic company for at least 5 years, Dr. Gwengo is well informed and connected on the day-to-day chemical needs in the printed electronics sector. Established chemical companies like Neville Chemical Company, Covestro, Advanced Polymer Technology, Eastman Chemical Company, Sanyo Chemical Industries, Nova, Callery, Lockhart, Shore Corporation maybe customers for KOOCH.

As a startup, BioFuran Materials is currently a small entity with respect to the number of employees. We believe that our process development, product portfolio development, and commercialization efforts will benefit from an expanded team. This includes the technical and business development personnel already described and should also be extended to beefing up the executive leadership. Bringing a sweat equity, business development-focused co-founder will bring the balance which is currently lacking at the executive level.

On customer base development, which requires the disruption of the incumbent metal salts, the company will need to present a strong presence in the marketplace, enticing new customers, and helping them understand our renewable approach to chemical manufacturing, the safety benefits that comes with switching to our biodegradable salts, as well as the environmental benefits our business approach. Our social media marketing will need to be reworked to extend the reach of customers, both local and global.

The waste recycling approach will need to get the blessing and strong backing environmental regulators such as the EPA. Once we convince the EPA and other regulatory bodies, it will be easier to convince and attract more food waste producers to work with us.  

Partnerships usually work well with responsible, informed leadership at the top. We are convinced that Dr. Gwengo will drive the technical (product and process) developments. However, having experts in relationship development and sustenance will be critical. This will help us navigate the stakeholder network involved both on the food chain, chemical manufacturing & supply as well as business development. We will need help reaching chain food retailers such as Walmart, Costco, etc. Once we get our at the door, we believe that we can extract the most out such relationship where food waste can easily be expanded to include both liquids and solids. Such expansions however will imply that we continue to modify and improve our processes to include both liquid and solid food wastes.

Partnering with MIT faculty will help us access the top-notch analytical and process development capabilities that maybe available at MIT. In addition, institutions like MIT always have interested budding scientists who may be keen to work on our project. Also, working with renewables-interested MIT faculty may just be the gateway we will need to a network of developers, users, and any other interested stakeholders. In addition, working MIT may simply add to a customer for renewable chemicals which may fast track our path joining the MIT chemical supply as a supplier of green organo-salts.