Competitive Edge: KX2 Development

Q: What was the reason for founding your organization – what was the open niche you saw that could be addressed with a new product or service? What was the problem, or gap, or opportunity?

Our organization was founded to help companies with process design, pilot scale-up and commercialization. Startups working on new technology for renewable chemicals and fuels often need help with scale effort during piloting and commercialization. Our group is one of the best in the world for conceptual process design and piloting. Our team has helped new technology development at small as well as some of the largest chemical companies. 

Pilot plant testing is expensive and time consuming. We have pilot plant infrastructure that can be adapted rapidly as per client needs. Pilot plant execution time can therefore be reduced by 50% as well as the overall capital and operating cost can be reduced by over 30%. Our team has demonstrated an average capital and operating cost reduction of 30% for several projects currently in commercial operation.

Q: Tell us about your organization. What do you do?

Making the right decisions early in the project is critical as those can have a significant impact on the overall project cost. We use cross-disciplinary teams involving chemists and engineers to benchmark and then improve existing process technology. 

Our scale-up team can help clients quickly move their ideas from R&D bench scale to pilot scale. We offer fully integrated skid-mounted pilot plants for installation at the client facility. We also have significant pilot plant operations infrastructure where we can construct and operate custom designed pilot plants for clients with 24-7 operations and state-of-the-art analytics. 

We also offer skid-mounted commercial scale systems that are self-contained and can be integrated with the overall plant. Our goal is to reduce CAPEX and OPEX by at least 30% and provide skid-mounted pilot plants and skid-mounted commercial systems at an expedited schedule with substantial cost savings for our clients compared to other options.

Q: What stage of development are you?

Commercial stage – have mature products or services on the market.

Q: What do your technologies, products or services do and accomplish – how does it (they) work, who is it (they) aimed for?

KX2 provides support to clients from concept to commercialization. Starting with initial process R&D and Intellectual Property generation, we provide full-service pilot plant design, construction and operation as per client needs. Our team of engineers and operators enable 24-7 pilot plant operations and provide detailed analytics to support the scale-up effort. Our fabrication team provides world-class capabilities in skid-mounted commercial systems on a turn-key basis on accelerated construction schedule and provide better quality systems at significantly lower costs. Our pilot plant infrastructure includes fermenters, high pressure reactors and distillation columns along with analytics that is available to clients on a tolling basis.

Q: Competitively, what gives your technology, product or service set an edge in cost or performance, sustainability, or any other aspect, that makes it stand out from the crowd, In short, what makes it transformative?

KX2’s multifunctional team has world-class capability to help clients execute from R&D to pilot plants all the way to commercial plants at an accelerated pace using systematic process development for safer and cost-efficient design and scale-up. Some key points:

• 30% average capital cost reduction
• 30% average operating cost reduction 
• 1 Year – average time for pilot plant execution
• 50% cost reduction for commercial systems

Q: What are some of the top milestones you have accomplished in the past 3 years?

You can check out some of KX2’s work here. 

For example, KX2 was responsible for the invention, development, piloting and commercialization of a proprietary technology to manufacture renewable Ethyl Acetate. 

Another example, a Lignocellulosic Biomass to Ethanol pilot plant was supplied to a major petroleum company. The plant is designed for multi-feed/multi pretreatment capabilities for processing biomass such as bagasse, wheat straw, rice straw etc., and pretreatment operations of biomass under a wide range of operating conditions (up to 25 bar g and 220 Deg C) with steam/ acid/alkali/aqueous ammonium hydroxide.

A third example, the Reactive Distillation pilot was built for the production of Lactic Acid. The pilot plant is designed to demonstrate production of 99% pure food-grade Lactic Acid.

Q: What are the 3 top milestones you will accomplish in the next 3 years?

1. Construction and operation of multiple state-of-the-art pilot plants for clients.
2. Demonstration of new technologies for renewable chemicals.
3. Begin construction of specialty chemicals facility in Asia.

Q. Where can I learn more about KX2 Development?

Click here to visit KX2 Development’s website.