Sustainable Alternatives to Fossil-Based Molecules
Petroleum is found in most everyday products which hurts our environment. Bloom found a way to turn wood and agricultural waste into renewable materials that fully replace petroleum. Thanks to this solution, companies have a green and locally available alternative, reach eco-conscious customers, meet government guidelines, save on C02 taxes and help tackle climate change.
Thirteen million barrels of oil, extracted from the Earth’s crust every day, make it into our everyday products. At the end of life, most of this material ends up polluting our environment. This must stop, yet replacing these materials is a challenge. Petroleum offers excellent building blocks and has production processes that have been optimised over more than a century, but it is not a sustainable industry. The only viable path forward is to efficiently mine carbon molecules from renewable sources, such as atmospheric CO2 and plants.
Plants are the second largest source of renewable carbon. They can be harvested sustainably (FSC) and are used industrially on a global scale (e.g. pulp & paper, agriculture). However, the current processes are not designed to harvest materials that replace petroleum.
Bloom has developed the first industrial process able to valorise all fractions of the plants. Furthermore, these molecules are specifically designed to replace fossil-based molecules in tomorrow’s sustainable products.
“We are currently the only ones able to extract everything that can be extracted”, Bloom CEO and cofounder Remy Buser explains in a video on Bloom’s website.
The market potential is virtually unlimited. Bloom is focusing on multiple verticals, such as fragrance and flavor, plastics, cosmetics and textile.
„In the future we envision, plastics are made from wood, perfumes from nutshells and all our side-products go into bio-fuel production. With our passion and knowhow, we aim to revolutionize the chemical industry by providing new, cost-competitive alternatives to fossil based molecules“, says Buser.
By creating the opportunity of locally sourcing sustainable building blocks for a wide range of everyday products, Bloom greatly contributes to the mitigation of climate change.
The company is currently making batches of about 1 kg of bioaromatics and looking to scale up its process. To date, Bloom has raised more than $1.7 million from investors. It is seeking $4 million to build a pilot facility and, later, $60 million for a demonstration-scale facility.