🏭 The Column: February 6, 2026

Good morning. Some good news in the world of chemical startups today! Also, if you’re interested in joining me full-time at Solugen, we’re looking to hire an analytical generalist with deck and model-making chops to help me with business operations (and more). Let me know if you’re interested.

Ammobia raised a seed round

We may be an entire century down the ammonia production learning curve, but Ammobia thinks we still have a ways to go: the startup just raised a $7.5m seed round (primarily from the corporate venture world, e.g. including Shell and Chevron) to build a pilot scale version of their novel reactor, which they expect to deliver at 50% lower capex and with 10-40% lower opex per pound. They aren’t being explicit about what drives that innovation, but their pending patent suggests that they are using a blend of catalyst and sorbent to effectively remove ammonia as it forms (driving the reaction forward, increasing single pass conversion, reducing recycle, and therefore reducing reactor size). Not sure if this concept has been tried in another process… let me know if you’re familiar. [LINK]

Syzygy’s offtake agreement

Trafigura, a Singapore-based commodities trading firm, just signed a binding 6-year offtake agreement to buy 100% of the biogas-derived sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Syzygy’s first commercial site (which will be located in Uruguay). Syzygy is trying to commercialize a photocatalytic alternative to syngas production—which, to me, sounds like pseudoscience (mostly because photocatalysis wasn’t part of my undergraduate chemical engineering education), but I’m not sure it actually matters—Uruguay lacks domestic oil production, imports all of their jet fuel, and has an ample supply of biogas from dairy farms (Syzygy is going from biogas to syngas). This looks like a match made in heaven to me: it’s a cheap option for Trafigura that costs enough to finance Syzygy’s experiment, and I hope the best for them because I prefer the world where photocatalysis works at scale. [LINK]

Lilac’s offtake agreement

Similarly, Traxys, a Luxembourg-based commodities trading firm, signed a binding 10-year offtake agreement to buy 100% of the lithium carbonate from Lilac Solutions’ first commercial site (which will be located at Utah’s Great Salt Lake). Lilac is commercializing a direct lithium extraction (DLE) process technology that performed well at both pilot and demonstration scale. Like Syzygy, this is generally low risk for the trading company, but it’s the sort of thing that makes FIDs happen. And we want more FIDs. [LINK]

Other Things Happened:

Cemvita and Radix want to convert glycerol into SAF. Lummus is now licensing a PMMA depolymerization process. Arlanxeo started up a new hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber plant in China. ExxonMobil started up its third plastic recycling unit at its Baytown, Texas site. Givaudan is going to blend more fragrances in Mexico. Sika is building five (5) new sites across the globe. Covestro just debottlenecked their TDI plant in China. Dow Chemical laid of 13% of its workforce. New Iridium is rebranding as Kemvera. Nigeria will be home to the world’s largest urea plant.