June 17th, 2010 by Tom Schulz
MIT Technology Review May-Jun 2010
The May/June edition of MIT Technology Review lists their “Ten Emerging Technologies 2010″. “Solar Fuel” has been selected as one of the “technologies that are likely to change the world”. The article describes how organisms are used to produce fuel directly out of CO2 in the air, water, and sun light. Whereas some teams focus on modifying and optimizing the organisms, BioCee’s core competence is to provide an efficient, reliable and low-cost bioreactor. Companies mentioned in the article are Joule Biotechnologies, Synthetic Genomics, and BioCee / University of Minnesota Biotechnology Institute.
BioCee is a member of a consortium that has received one of the first ARPA-E grants in fall 2009, for the development of “direct solar fuel” technology.
January 31st, 2010 by Tom Schulz
BioCee is mentioned in Kevin Bohn’s and Jessica Yellin’s article on the CNN website which gives a good overview on the ARPA-E program’s potential in the energy and job markets. They quoted us:
Tom Schulz, co-founder of BioCee, which does research in solar fuels, said the program will produce the next “Energy Google.”
“We don’t know which company of the funded projects it will be, and we don’t know when it will ‘tip.’ However, most of the projects will create only a few (but very qualified) jobs over the next two years,” Schulz said. “The real question is how many jobs will be created and saved in 5 to 10 years.”
December 22nd, 2009 by Tom Schulz
Greentech Media published their list of the cleantech “Top Ten High Concepts 2009″, and BioCee is mentioned as #6 on the list. Thank you very much. Now: let’s make sure there’s no misunderstanding. BioCee’s technology — the bioreactor — is actually a proven technology for several applications. It’s only the new application, using two types of microorganisms for the production of fuel out of sunlight and CO2, that makes this a “high concept”.
“BioCee and the University of Minnesota wants to take sunlight, carbon dioxide and two organisms (cyanobacteria for sunlight capture and shewanella for metabolic transformation) to produce a liquid hydrocarbon. Coal and oil are indirect: sunlight and carbon dioxide create plant matter, but then geological forces are required to turn dead trees and microbes into a fuel. Think of it as microwave petroleum: no more slaving over the Permian basin for millions of years waiting for those hydrocarbons to be done.
An added plus: It creates a market for carbon dioxide and reduces the total amount that will exist in the atmosphere.”
December 15th, 2009 by Tom Schulz
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
December 6th, 2009 by Tom Schulz
BioCee’s story on Public Radio’s “Living on Earth Program”. I learnt that we are now the “Magic Bug Guys”. Sounds like fun. For those of you who haven’t followed the news on BioCee: After receiving an NSF grant for desulfurization of petroleum products, we were amongst the Top 3 recipients of the brand new ARPA-E grants. This time for our participation in a consortium with the University of Minnesota and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, making “direct solar fuel”. BioCee’s bioreactor will be the home for two types of microorganisms that produce biofuel directly from sunlight and CO2. See BioCee’s website for the press release and the news articles.
