Incitor

New Mexico based Incitor Incorporated has announced closing of a $1.5 million funding round led by investor Cottonwood Technology Fund. Incitor broke ground on a pilot biofuel plant in April of this year to further develop its patent-pending low-temperature chemical process for conversion of biomass into commodity petrochemical replacements, specia... lty bio-based chemicals, and Alestron, an advanced biofuel compatible with both gasoline and diesel. The process can accept a variety of biomass feedstock including agricultural, solid, woody, or algal waste. Incitor's technology platform combines strong acid hydrolysis with dehydration at relatively moderate processing temperatures (100-150 C) to deconstruct biomass, then refines the intermediary products using homogeneous catalysis at ambient temperature. The new funding will help scale up its process to a 15,000-30,000 gallon per year demonstration facility; target product price is about $2 / gallon for fuel, while cutting production costs for important industrial chemicals such as levulinates, formates, and proprionates by about 80%. "We believe Incitor's unique low cost chemistry brings new economics to the biofuels and biochemicals industries. In addition, their inclusion of alcohols (methanol and ethanol) in their synthetic process creates interesting opportunities to create higher value products from ethanol and natural gas," said David Blivin, Managing Director of Cottonwood Technology Fund.Read More