Trillium Renewable Chemicals

Abstract

At a 2013 workshop held in a hotel at the Detroit airport, representatives from the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative of the US Department of Energy (DOE) asked a group of industry leaders how to reduce emissions from manufacturing carbon fiber—a strong and lightweight material used to replace steel and aluminum in airplanes, automobiles, and wind turbines. They all had the same response. “We need sustainable acrylonitrile,” they said, according to Corey Tyree, CEO and cofounder of Trillium Renewable Chemicals. Acrylonitrile is the raw material used to make carbon fiber. It’s also used as a feedstock for polymers such as nitrile rubber and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, the plastic in Lego blocks. Conventional acrylonitrile is normally made from propylene, a petrochemical with a heavy carbon footprint. After the workshop, the DOE funded a project at the nonprofit Southern Research Institute to make biobased acrylonitrile. The team found a way, and Southern Research spun out