Cemvita, a climate tech company converting waste into sustainable oil using synthetic biology, announced a significant milestone in its production capabilities. Demonstrating the success of the company’s microbial waste-to-oil process, Cemvita’s technologies can now produce up to 500 barrels per day of sustainable oil from its first commercial plant—an achievement initially projected for 2029.

In an industry where scaling up is notoriously challenging and costly, Cemvita's advancements in lipid productivity have allowed the company to quadruple its planned output. This success is partly due to adaptive evolutionary improvements in its advanced microbes. Furthermore, reactor optimization has boosted oil extraction efficiency by at least 330%.

“What's so amazing about synthetic biology is that humans are just scratching the surface of what's possible,” said Moji Karimi, CEO of Cemvita. “Our focus on the first principles has allowed us to design and create new biotech more cheaply and faster than ever before. Our combination of low-CAPEX design, innovations in bioprocess engineering, and increased productivity, enabled by synthetic biology, sets us apart. Today’s threefold achievement in efficiently producing sustainable oil from crude glycerin comes just two months after our breakthrough in developing a solvent-free extraction bioprocess. All this work has taken place in our Houston pilot plant.”

This announcement is expected to have significant positive effects on the business, including increased production capacity, improved operational efficiency, and a stronger competitive position in the sustainable oil market. Cemvita leads the biotechnology industry by leveraging nature's power combined with synthetic biology to decarbonize heavy industries and deliver cleaner products without sacrificing the benefits of our current carbon-based manufacturing economy.

Cemvita is gaining momentum through partnerships and top-tier talent acquisition. In collaboration with Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, Cemvita is working to produce sustainable fats, chemicals, and fuel feedstocks efficiently using its advanced microbial suite and bioprocess design. This process lowers oil production costs and expands the company's market portfolio by exploring high-value compounds within bioprocesses.

Nadia Skorupa Parachin, Vice President of Industrial Biotechnology, joined Cemvita in July to speed up the company’s synthetic biology advancements, enhancing efficiency. Phil Garcia, recently promoted to Vice President of Commercialization, has been leading the company’s commercialization efforts since last year. Cemvita expects to announce further technological and production advancements in the coming months, promising a future of increased productivity and sustainability.

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