BioCee – biocatalysis for clean fuels, chemicals and water
BioCee is the company that I co-founded with my friend, biologist, chemical and environmental engineer Marc von Keitz; other co-founders are Michael Flickinger, who developed the technology at the University of Minnesota, and Luca Zullo, who joined us from Cargill.
BioCee is a material science company, right at the overlap of biotech and chemical engineering. They produce bioreactors that make microorganisms happier and more efficient than the usual steel tanks in which they have to do their work.
The first applications BioCee focuses on are desulfurization of petroleum products (NSF gives us a grant for that), and “Direct Solar Fuel”; “Direct Solar Fuel” is the production of hydrocarbons directly from sunlight and CO2 (some kind of artificial photosynthesis). For that, BioCee was among the first three ARPA-E recipients in October 2009.
Please see my 99 second interview on BioCee which was taped at the Munich Cleantech Conference a week ago (it’s in German).
The official press release is here, and lots of excellent press article are here.
Tom Schulz explains BioCee in 99 seconds
Great idea! And good luck with this startup! If bacteria can make beer it would be only fair for them make gasoline for us too.