ReSource has been selected as one of 49 awardees for a federal grant from the US Department of Energy's Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO). The grant, worth $5.4M, is among an investment totaling $171M by IEDO to reduce industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and accelerate the development of innovative decarbonization technologies.
Our project will demonstrate, at pilot scale, the ability to continuously convert lignocellulose-derived furfural into furan-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (FDCA), which is used to make polyethylene furanoate (PEF) a potential direct replacement for fossil-derived plastic packaging. FDCA can also be used in solvents/glues, cosmetics, and other high-volume consumer goods. Relative to state-of-the-art processes for manufacturing FDCA, our technology uses milder process conditions, consumes CO2, uses only water as a solvent, and drastically reduces the number of required process steps. These process improvements could enable cost parity of FDCA-based materials compared to the current state-of-the-art and reduce carbon intensity by 85% over fossil derived alternatives.