Business Unit Industrial Solutions
Direvo's Industrial Solutions business unit targets the many fast-growing industries that carry out biomass conversion. These include agriculture and biofuels. This business unit applies Direvo's core technologies of molecular biology, genetics, automation & high-throughput screening to develop tailor-made biological solutions to common and costly industrial problems.

Our products are newly designed enzymes and microorganisms of the highest quality that provide easy-to-implement, cost-effective solutions. Our contribution assures that our partners stay competitive and profitable while we add to their ability to make the future cleaner, greener and safer.

This business unit delivers applications in the following areas:

  • Optimizing biomass conversion processes in various industries so that
    • Efficacy and yield are improved
    • Fewer by-products are generated
    • Those by-products that remain can, in turn, be used more efficiently
  • Improving the economics of grain-to-ethanol processes by enhancing product quality and the functionality of by-products
  • Developing novel algae extraction technologies that allow the cost-efficient recovery of high-value metabolites and biochemicals

 

Back to top

Business Unit Lignocellulose
Both the chemical industries and the transportation sector are undergoing a paradigm shift away from fossil fuels due to at least two causes: rising prices that reflect increasing scarcity, on the one hand, and political pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the other. These factors have led to increasing interest in the use of a renewable, sustainable feedstock – biomass. Turning biological feedstocks into "green fuels" and bulk chemicals is the goal of this emerging industry. Sources of these feedstocks include agricultural and forestry residues like wood, straw and stover as well as "energy crops" like switchgrass and miscanthus. Our focus is to develop, optimize and implement solutions for our partners and customers in the form of biocatalysts and bioprocesses.

From the sourcing of biological diversity through our efficient biocatalyst optimization platform to our established process development capabilities, we cover full technology development cycles in all areas of lignocellulosic biomass conversion. Examples of our work include:

  • Creation of enzymes and microorganisms that improve the production efficiency of ethanol, butanol and other liquid biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks
  • Creation of enzymes that enhance the production of aromatic chemicals from lignin
  • Conversion of biomass into valuable starting materials for the synthesis of polymers