Transforming bad carbon dioxide into good oils TUTECH

Category

Transforming bad carbon dioxide into good oils

COLIPI does this with biology, innovative technologies and a great team from Hamburg

Since 2021, COLIPI‘s founding partners are dedicated to develop a scalable oil production where yeast and bacterial cultures upcycle industrial carbon side streams. This is a promising value proposition, especially with regard to CO2 utilization, as bacteria can be fed with CO2 and the extracted oil that mimics vegetable oils like palm oil can be used as feedstock for biofuel production or raw material for consumer products like cosmetics, detergents and others. Its carbon-footprint is lower compared to any other oil. But one first must make the arduous journey from the university laboratory to the free market.

Building an international Research and Development Network

Along the way, COLIPI has shown several times, how to transform obstacles into milestones; and there are plenty, as the product development requires not only stable funding for customized bioprocess hardware but also a great deal of specialized knowledge in genetic engineering and extensive oil processing resources.

EEN with its Hamburg based host-organization TUTECH accompanied the start-up in some of their steps during the early phase:

To further improve the oil downstreaming process, the company was looking for contacts to universities or contract research organizations with relevant expertise, pilot plants and downstream equipment. The French Innovative ALLIANCE for the Eco-responsible Valorization of Biomass, bringing together the forces of PIVERT, ITERG and IMPROVE, has the common mission to guide companies towards the ecological transition and the adoption of biorefinery practices, embodying the factory of the future.

Today, raw materials for the food industry cause up to 80% of the corporate CO2 – a challenging fact, as they should be net zero by latest 2050.

COLIPI selected the ALLIANCE with its extensive expertise as ideal R&D partner to improve oil downstream processing and scale fermentation.

Presenting the aspired cooperation project as tech validation case within a pitch for EIT Food Accelerator Network led to an award of 30.000€ that COLIPI now spends on contract research with ALLIANCE partners. This includes characterization of oils incl. vitamins and proteins, applying oils and proteins in trial food and cosmetic products and scaling of fermentation.

We help small and medium-sized companies to break new ground.

As a Hamburg partner in the EU-funded “Enterprise Europe Network” (EEN), Tutech offers access to the world’s largest service network for cross-border business development. Small and medium-sized enterprises and their partners receive free individual support from the EEN team at Tutech and our 3000 network colleagues in over 60 countries in setting up international business and research collaborations as well as advice on innovation and internationalisation.