Låkril tackles the challenge of biobased acrylic acid

Some of the largest chemical companies in the world—Arkema, BASF, Cargill, Dow, and LG Chemical among them—have attempted to make acrylic acid via a biobased route. It stands to reason that they would. The product is the key raw material for making the superabsorbent polymers found in diapers and incontinence products, which have a reputation for generating a lot of waste. Acrylic acid derivatives are also ubiquitous in acrylic paints and adhesives. To make it from renewable raw materials rather than fossil fuels would be a big win.

“The market has desired a biobased acrylic for quite some time, 20-some-odd years at this point, and no one’s ever made the economics work,” says Christopher P. Nicholas, chief technology officer and cofounder of Låkril Technologies.

Nicholas thinks Låkril has the catalyst that will allow the firm to succeed where others have failed.

The conventional process for making acrylic acid is the oxidation of propylene into acrolein, followed by another oxidation into acrylic acid. This petrochemical pathway is responsible for nearly all the 7 million metric tons (t) of acrylic acid produced annually around the world.

Companies have attempted two main routes to a biobased alternative, both involving dehydration of a monomer made via sugar fermentation. One—tried by firms such as BASF, Cargill, and Dow—starts with 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP). The other is based on lactic acid, a pathway that Cargill is investigating with technology licensed from the diaper producer Procter & Gamble.

The lactic acid route has its appeal. 3-HP is not made in significant quantities, whereas lactic acid has been commercially produced via fermentation since the 1880s, Nicholas points out. Today, about 2 million t of it is made annually by companies like Cargill and Corbion via fermentation of sugars from corn or other local crops. The lactic is then used to produce derivatives such as the biobased polymer polylactic acid.

The chemistry of lactic acid is challenging, however. “The two molecules—the feedstock lactic acid and the product acrylic acid—are probably two of the most reactive molecules I’ve had to work with over the course of my career,” Nicholas says. “Both of them love to polymerize, and it’s why they’re essentially good monomers, but it’s also quite a pain to work with them in the lab.”

In addition, being an α-hydroxy acid, lactic acid is more difficult to dehydrate than 3-HP, which is a β-hydroxy acid. This obstacle is a reason that, despite the commercial availability of lactic acid, many firms have pursued a 3-HP route.

Låkril’s catalyst gives the lactic acid route the advantage by achieving dehydration better than any previous effort had, according to Nicholas. The catalyst was discovered in 2020 at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities lab of chemical engineer Paul J. Dauenhauer, a Låkril cofounder. Dauenhauer had been working on improvements to zeolite catalysts for the transformation of lactates into acrylates. He found that bifunctional zeolite catalysts with engineered bases could control the dehydration of α-hydroxy acids with high efficiency.

Nicholas says the catalyst produces acrylic acid at a yield of 90%. Previous efforts at dehydration of lactic acid achieved yields of only 80–85%.

“The largest contributor to the cash cost of production of bio-acrylic acid is the lactic acid,” Nicholas says. “You can’t afford to throw any of the feedstock away as off-spec product. So the biggest thing that you need is high selectivity.”

Nicholas contends that its more efficient catalyst makes Låkril’s process competitive with even the petrochemical route. A plant using Låkril’s catalyst to produce 40,000 t of acrylic acid per year would have cost parity with a propylene-based plant, he says.

With their promising catalyst in hand, Dauenhauer and Nicholas formed Låkril in 2021. Later that year, the start-up won the Consider Corn Challenge, a contest sponsored by the National Corn Growers Association. In 2022, the firm raised money in a preseed funding round led by Iowa Corn. Låkril has also been awarded over $2 million in federally funded research grants from the US Departments of Energy and Agriculture, as well as from the US National Science Foundation.

Earlier this year, Låkril closed a $3.2 million seed funding round, bringing its total funding to approximately $7 million. With that round came a well-connected backer: GC Ventures America, the venture capital arm of the Thai petrochemical giant PTT Global Chemical. PTT owns Allnex, a coating resin maker that uses acrylic resins. PTT also is a 50% shareholder in NatureWorks, a polylactic acid joint venture with Cargill. Låkril aims to pursue a series A financing round in 2026.

Later this year, the company will start up a continuously operating pilot plant in Chicago that will have the capacity to produce 4 kg of acrylic acid per day. In addition to fine-tuning Låkril’s process for scale-up, the plant will provide sample quantities to acrylic acid users. To assist the company as it begins commercialization, it has hired Justin Brown as CEO. Brown is an energy industry veteran, with experience at Honeywell UOP.

Låkril’s long-term vision is to license its technology and provide the catalyst to a third party that would build the first plant, perhaps a demonstration plant that produces 1–10 t per day. If Låkril reaches that stage, it will have succeeded where for decades many larger firms have fallen short.

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