Over 100 million gallons of petroleum-based products are consumed every hour worldwide. What if we could replace fossil petroleum with sustainable oil made from waste biomass? At Kiverdi, we are commercializing a unique, proprietary bioprocess to do just that.
Using waste as a lower cost resource
Kiverdi's technology uses carbon-rich waste such as landfill and municipal waste, agricultural waste, and wood construction waste. Waste carbon is significantly cheaper and more environmentally sound than sugar and other high-cost feedstock that affect the food supply. Utilizing waste feedstock enables us to produce fuels and chemicals sustainably at a significantly lower cost than from food feedstock that can seamlessly replace petroleum.
Wood waste
180 million tons of wood residue is generated in the US each year. Wood residue sources include logging residue, bark, branches, waste wood, sawdust, stumps, and waste generated from production of wood products as well as pulp and paper manufacturing. These materials are typically burned, landfilled, or left to decay in the forest. Kiverdi's process can use these lower cost biomass resources to produce fossil petroleum and oleochemical replacement products.
Agricultural waste
Approximately 170 million dry tons of agricultural residue is available in the US for conversion into chemicals and fuel. Agricultural residue includes corn stover, straw from wheat, sugar cane, barley and oats, peanut hulls and rice husks. However, agricultural residue tends to be highly cellulosic and conversion to products, by biological and chemical catalysts, has proven to be costly. Kiverdi's process offers a low-cost way to upgrade cellulosic biomass into valuable oil-based products.
Food processing waste
The food processing industry generates waste as part of processing raw materials into packaged food. This includes grain husks from breweries and residues from meat, fruit, nuts and vegetable processing facilities. Typically the waste is landfilled or inefficiently combusted in boilers. By co-locating our plants with food processing facilities, Kiverdi offers a distributed solution that enables food processors to diversify their revenue and generate value from a biomass resource.
Landfill and municipal waste
More than 245 million tons of municipal waste is generated in the U.S. each year of which about 135 million tons is landfilled. Kiverdi's technology provides municipalities, waste management companies and gasification companies an opportunity to realize this unutilized resource. By avoiding landfilling, we reduce emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases, put the land resources to use for making higher value products and localize resources at urban centers.