Clark W Langmack
John Carroll University
Beau Daane
Keep this story going! Share below!
Upcycling of municipal wood waste into green fuel and high value chemicals.
Produce DHE and DMP without the use of Petroleum.
Has a patent pending process for taking municipal wood waste and changing it into Dihydroergotamine, Dimethylphenylpiperazinium, Lignin-free cellulose and xylose. Their method is cost effective and environmentally safe. Though this process has little use on an individual level, but it already has uses in the flavor and fragrance industries, as well as potential use in the pharmaceutical and bio-fuel.
They were recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for their research into the renewable production of natural vanillin from sustainable non-food biomass.
The production of natural vanillin, which originally needed isoeugenol, ferulic acid and vanilla beans, is limited due to the high cost of the raw materials.
Their one step process for the Selective Process for Efficient Removal of Lignin and Upgrading or SPERLU, may improve the efficiency of alternative fuel production.
The word Spero means Hope, and that is a large part of the inspiration of Spero Energy.
As mentioned above, their mission is developing cost-competitive conversion of non-food biomass feedstock to high-value chemicals (HVCs) and renewable fuels, however the company from which they originally came from, "C3Bio", has a broader mission statement that can be seen in the genes of what Spero does.
C3Bio Mission Statement "The research mission of C3Bio is to master the ability to reconfigure all partially reduced carbon from plant cell walls into desired molecules."
Spero Energy has won numerous awards from multiple competitions as well as the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation for its new catalytic process for lignin . The new technology of creating HVC's from lignin during the one-step process of creating lignin-free cellulose moves the industry closer to creating renewable energy sources. Most of the current bio-refinery processes for making cellulosic ethanol uses the lignin in heat generation for energy.
Due to the high efficiency of their SPERLU process, it could prove to be not only more sustainable but also gives a higher return on the resources spent.
There is also immediate value added from the lignin being converted into HVC's.
In a typical multi-step process for creating cellulose ethanol, the carbohydrates are separated from the lignin in a pre-treatment process that has to use acids and high temperatures. The patent pending process of Spero Energy's avoids that step environmentally harmful step.
Their process is more efficient, which leads to less energy wasted.
Efficiency of process leads to less wasted energy within the process as which makes the process more green.
Get stories of positive business innovations from around the world delivered right to your inbox.
none, general questions
Spero Energy Inc. is an Indiana based company that was spun off of a larger company the Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio). Both companies are a part of the Purdue Research Parks, one of the largest university based company incubators in the countries. The company's mission is the development of cost effective method of converting non-food biomass into renewable fuel and HVCs (High Value Chemicals). The company consists of six team members and four advisors, ranging from engineers to business/market specialists.