Pivoting from Plants-to-Food to Plants-to-X – What’s the future of Ag?

Plants-to-X

Let’s start with Washington-based Sironix Renewables who is producing plant-based surfactant for detergents, cleaners and shampoos, at a time when let’s face it, our concern for cleanliness due to COVID-19 is probably at an all time high across the globe.

The big news today is that Sironix Renewables closed a seed round to scale production of its plant-based surfactants that demonstrate 500x higher stability in hard water and are 100% free of 1,4 dioxane a potential carcinogenic contaminant facing restrictions.

The round of $645,000 included funding from the University of Minnesota Discovery Capital Investment program and from angel investors. Additionally, Sironix also announced it has been awarded a $1.15 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office. So the grand total? $1.8 million.

Sironix will use this new funding to scale production at its Seattle facility of its Eosix technology. The plant-based products replace petroleum-based ingredients in shampoos, detergents and cleaners and have additional applications ranging from personal care and cosmetics to agriculture, paints, inks and other coatings. The products also offer a safe option for avoiding the likely carcinogenic contaminant called 1,4-dioxane found in some cleaners and personal care products that has faced recent regulatory restrictions in New York and California.

Go to next page for more on the technology, how COVID impacted their labs, what the crystal ball shows, and how food and fermentation fits in.