Trillium FiberFuels is creating process technology and equipment for converting cellulosic feedstocks into ethanol. Our isomerization process will have applicability in many biomass conversion situations since most feedstocks have a sizable xylose fraction to be harvested. While this is a primary focus for us, we are based in Oregon and put special significance on feedstocks of regional significance such as straw and softwood residues in order to facilitate a regional biorefinery project. Of course, many of these feedstocks are also present at many locations around the world.
Our logo is the beautiful trillium flower which is found in many regions including our Northwest home. However, the name has a more esoteric (i.e. nerdy) root. Early in the development of Trillium we identified agricultural residues as a preferred feedstock due to their consistency, fine structure, low lignin content, collection infrastructure, and supportive public policy. In our region, the two main agricultural residues are straw from wheat and ryegrass. The genus of the scientific names for wheat and ryegrass are Triticum and Lolium, respectively. A contraction of the two resulted in our moniker - Trillium. The recent photo below shows the two crops in adjacent fields in Benton county, Oregon.
The four founders of Trillium FiberFuels are:
Chris Beatty (MS Materials Science - Microfabrication) 22 years experience at Hewlett-Packard including 15+ years in product/process development and 5 years in business development. 18 issued and numerous pending patents in MEMS, inkjet, and fuel cells. Founded and managed Ecopress (book publishing) which was later acquired by a larger press. Chris is president of the company and a member of the board of directors.
Steve Potochnik (Ph.D. ChemE - Catalysis) Steve has over 10 years of process/product development experience at Hewlett-Packard including 5 issued patents. Areas of expertise include wet chemical processing and catalysis. Steve is lead process developer at Trillium.
Vince Remcho (Ph.D. Chem - Analytical) Vince is a professor in the Chemistry department at Oregon State University and an affiliate scientist for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He has authored numerous scientific publications and his current research areas include microreators and advanced separations. Vince's primary responsibilities are at OSU. As part of that capacity, he will be the principal investigator for our proposed work with ONAMI on advanced isomerization systems.
Grant Pease (Ph.D. ME - Control Systems) 16+ years experience at Hewlett-Packard including 10 years in product/process development and 5 years of management experience in new business development. Grant developed much of the financial structure, cost models, and business direction for Trillium at its inception as part of an entreprenuerial leave of absence from HP. Although he has returned to HP, he continues to help guide the company through his position on the board of directors.
Our main office is in Corvallis, Oregon. We are on the East side of the Willamette River which puts us in Linn County, the grass seed capital of the world (really). We like the symbolism and have spent substantial time and energy understanding this feedstock from logistics to chemistry to process yield. We strongly believe that it has excellent potential for biorefinery development. Of course, other straws and softwood residues are important here also and many of the process technology components that we develop will be applicable to more than one feedstock.
Our office includes an analytical laboratory, a small processing area, and office space. In our lab, we can analyze the inputs and outputs of various process steps using several key instruments:
· Liquid Chromatography (sugar and inhibitor analysis)
· Gas Chromatography (ethanol and other volatile analysis)
· UV-Vis Spectrophotometry (inhibitors)
· Optical Microscopy
· Hydrometry (ethanol, sugars)
In addition, we have the usual equipment for experiments including glassware, pH meters, multimeters, heaters, stirrers, scales, etc.
Our processing area includes a variety of equipment for processing biomass at up to the 20 liter scale. A summary of the equipment includes:
We also have a "Biomass Library" of samples of various materials for further research as opportunities and potential collaborations develop.
Trillium also maintains a small office as part of our partnership and lease agreement with ONAMI, the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute. We have an active collaboration in process there and hope to be able to announce a plan by mid-2008.