LanzaTech strikes a double in NZBIO awards

LanzaTech strikes a double in NZBIO awards

LanzaTech, which has taken its technology for converting waste gases in to ethanol and chemicals from its Auckland laboratory to the world, has won the NZBIO 2011 Company of the Year Award.

And its cofounder and chief scientist Dr Sean Simpson has won the 2011 Young Biotechnologist of the Year award.

Dr Simpson, who is in The Netherlands speaking at the World Biofuels Markets conference, says he is thrilled LanzaTech has been recognised by its peers in New Zealand.

"LanzaTech's journey since we started in 2005 has been both demanding and exciting," he said from Rotterdam. "In the past 18 months our progress has accelerated and we are seeing our strategies come to fruition.

"LanzaTech shows it is possible for a New Zealand biotech company to successfully take its technology to the world. Our model has involved both local and international investors providing not only the capital, but also the connections to develop our international strategy. The involvement by the government and K1W1 in New Zealand, Khosla Ventures in the United States and more recently Qiming Ventures in China has been vital to allowing us to get in to the markets and inside the right doors."

LanzaTech first focused on proving it could ferment waste gases from steel mill flues to make a low cost ethanol. It took its patented process and microbe to the Glenbrook Steel Mill near Auckland and ran a pilot plant producing ethanol for more than two years. Now it is working with global giants Baosteel in China, Posco in Korea and IndianOil to scale plants that will produce commercial levels of ethanol.

In August last year LanzaTech announced it had also successfully produced 2,3-Butanediol (2,3-BD), a key building block used to make polymers, plastics and hydrocarbon fuels, using its fermentation technology. 2,3-BD can be readily converted to intermediaries like butenes, butadiene and methyl ethyl ketone that are used in the production of hydrocarbon fuels and a variety of chemicals including polymers, synthetic rubbers, plastics and textiles.

The fact that LanzaTech's process potentially enables chemicals production to be decoupled from petroleum and valuable food resources has attracted international attention from industries and environmentalists seeking solutions for curbing industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr Simpson says he is in Rotterdam to share with his contemporaries that LanzaTech has now also successfully fermented carbon dioxide (CO2).

"People have been looking for ways to minimize and mitigate CO2 emissions, possibly by sequestering it underground," he says. "Our process means those emissions can be captured and fermented into chemicals that can be used instead of petro-chemicals to produce plastics."

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