There are over 340,000 regulated chemicals according to the American Chemical Society. Of those, 90 percent are produced or derived from oil and gas. These petrochemicals drive more than your family’s station wagon, they’ve shaped modern life as critical components in many 21st century luxuries. With demand for modern goods showing no signs of decreasing in the coming decades, the challenge facing the chemical industry is one of sustainability.
Oil and gas, as all fossil fuels, are finite resources that must be extracted from the earth. They lack the sustainability needed to support future generations and a growing world population. A small startup in the heart of the Red River Valley is aiming at solving this sustainability problem, and they’re harnessing the power of a crop grown right in their own backyard.
Renuvix, a renewable materials startup in Fargo, ND, developed a new, highly efficient method of transforming soybean oil into organic polymers with seemingly endless applications. If you’re unfamiliar with polymers, don’t worry. All you really need to know is that they’re found in countless consumer products, from plastics to paint, shampoos to the foam cushion you’re probably sitting on right now. I’ll leave it to the American Chemistry Council to offer a more in-depth explanation for the curious-minded.
The company, headquartered at the NDSU Technology Incubator, launched in 2013. The North Dakota Soybean Council, which was offering grants for the development of non-food applications for soybean oil, contributed to the early technology development that was the impetus for founding the company. Renuvix will be manufacturing unique bio-based resins and polymers for producers of consumer goods, including paints, coatings, composites, adhesives, cosmetics, and personal care products.
I sat down with co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Bret Chisholm, PhD, at his office overlooking Hector International Airport. Chisholm, with 20 years of polymer industry experience, helped develop much of the patent-pending bio-based technology—and secure the initial funding—that turned Renuvix into reality.
Dr. Bret Chisholm, PhD, is the CTO and Co-Founder of Renuvix, LLC. He has 20 years of experience with polymeric materials, including 10 years of direct experience in the industry. Dr. Chisholm has over 150 publications and 40 U.S. patents to his name.
Ben: Why are we here talking about polymers? What exactly is a polymer and what makes them so useful?
Bret: Basically they’re very large molecules. Water, ethanol are very small molecules… a polymer might be 100s of thousands of times longer. A good way to think about it is to consider the physical characteristics of molecules that are simply strings of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to them. Methane contains a single carbon atom with hydrogens and it’s a gas. Ethane, propane, and butane contain a string of 2, 3, and 4 carbons with hydrogens, respectively, and they are all gases. Increasing the string of carbon atoms to 5 results in a liquid (i.e. pentane). And then when you get to a string or 14 carbons, the material becomes a waxy solid. If you go to about 50 carbons or more, you get polyethylene, which is tough plastic. In fact, when the string of carbon atoms gets to be in the range of several 100s of thousands of carbon atoms, the polyethylene is so tough that it can be used for artificial knees and hip implants as well as bullet-proof body armour. So really, much of the utility of a polymer stems from its exceptionally long molecular length.
Ben: I get the feeling that polymers are everywhere. Can you share an example of an everyday product and how polymers fit in or make the product better?
Bret: So shampoos, for example, it’s mostly water. The polymers are thickening agents. The conventional surfactants (the stuff that makes your shampoo lather and foam) that are widely used are sulfates. These sulfates can damage your skin, they’re cytotoxic and can actually penetrate your skin. The polymers are much bigger molecules and can’t penetrate your skin or damage your cells. The polymers we create for this application are also 100 percent organic and biodegradable. The other thing we found is that when you put it in the shampoo, when you rinse, some of the polymers actually get attached and absorbed onto your hair and protects the hair… whereas sulfates actually will cause damage, removing a lot of protein and stripping your hair. The polymers actually remove less protein than if you just washed your hair with plain water, so it’s actually naturally strengthening for your hair. It’s basically like conditioning.
Ben: Ok, so we can enjoy lustrous, conditioned hair thanks to Renuvix polymers. What other applications are you guys really targeting with your bio-based soy polymers?
Bret: The other big application is coatings. Basically a paint that has no pigment (pigment can be added)… it’s the pure polymer that starts out in liquid form, and when you cast it down or paint it down, over time it converts to a solid film. The result is a really good, non-toxic varnish. The use of plant oils, like linseed, as a protective coating on wood, for example, has been around for a long time. Our pure, soy-based coating is much better in terms of hardness, scratch resistance, gloss… better than today’s modern paints and coatings that use petrochemicals as well as the plant oils. Our coatings penetrate into wood very nicely and have great gloss, but they can also be used on metal as a general purpose paint.
Ben: How would the average person’s daily routine be affected if polymers were never invented?
Bret: For synthetic polymers like we’re talking about, there would be no plastics for the most part. No foam insulation—foams in your chairs are made out of synthetic polymers. We wouldn’t have near the diversity in paints and coatings, rubber, silicone. The polymer is what ends up on the wall when we’re talking paint—what’s left on the wall is polymer and pigment after the solvent or the water evaporates and the paint dries. The big thing, though, is plastics, which are everywhere.
Ben: What are the long-term benefits of the Renuvix technology in terms of environmental impact, cost-savings for the end-user, impact in our region, etc?
Bret: Over 90 percent of all chemicals are based on petroleum oil. Renuvix polymers are all renewable, so we’re not taking carbon out of the ground like we do with those petrochemicals. We are bio-based without compromise… the stigma of bio-based has been performance issues. The industry public belief is you need to sacrifice performance for “going green.” Not so with these new molecules we’ve invented. They are inherently non-toxic with great performance. Our molecular structure lends itself to materials that are more rigid, stronger, more resistant to higher temperatures (like from melting or softening at a given temperature), stiffness, and strength. Another example is the epoxy resins that contain BPA. Transitioning to soy-based epoxy resins eliminates that toxicity issue, and the same toxicity problem goes away for paints that use our soy-based polymers. If it ends up in the environment, these natural components can biodegrade. And at some point the price of oil will go up, long-term sustainability isn’t an issue for Renuvix. And there is huge upside for North Dakota, because we grow all these crops and we have room for manufacturing facilities that will create jobs.
The Future is Bright
The global market for soy-based polymers is huge, but the momentum needs to continue in regards to transitioning away from the unsustainable petrochemical-based polymers widely used today. Right now we’re importing over 600,000 tons of petroleum-based butadiene—a key ingredient in commercial polymers—are imported from Asia. Soybean oil, however, is not only local, it’s also cheaper, sustainable, overly abundant, and less volatile than its petrochemical counterpart.
As a startup, Renuvix’s small 6-member team continues to seek funding and is still very much in growth mode. But they’re positioned in the right place at the right time to not only deliver big dividends to investors, but create economic opportunities for our local communities.