🏭 The Column: April 18, 2025

Good morning. Today we’re talking about a success story in the world of chemical startups—which is not something I’ve been able to do very often!

Things Happened:

A happy exit for Holocene

It’s pretty rare that we get to talk about a happy exit for a chemical startup, but today we have one to highlight: Holocene, who has been developing a unique direct-air-capture (DAC) process, just got acquired by Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) for an undisclosed sum (for reference, Oxy bought another DAC startup in 2023 for $1.1bn). Now, I know a lot of you roll your eyes at DAC because separating ppm levels of CO2 from air is an energy-intensive thing to do, but if you could meet those energy requirements with waste heat, and if that waste heat was coming from someone with an incentive to capture CO2, then DAC can start to make sense. That’s exactly what Holocene is going for—their process starts out just like Carbon Engineering’s (by pulling air into the system with large fans), but instead of absorbing CO2 with potassium hydroxide and requiring a 900°C calciner to release the CO2, Holocene absorbs CO2 with an amino acid (perhaps potassium glycinate or sarcosinate) and uses bis‑iminoguanidines (BIGs) to precipitate carbonate crystals that be separated from the solution and will release CO2 with low grade heat (70-100°C). In any case, regardless of whether or not DAC is ever used at scale for climate-related matters, Oxy makes for a great investor in this space because their downside is covered (even if DAC is a flop, at least the technology is relevant for enhanced oil recovery). [LINK]

Other Things Happened:

Amogy is trying to commercialize an ammonia cracking catalyst. Orbia just inaugurated its new electrolyte production facility in Wisconsin. The UAE is building a polylactic acid plant. Axens expanded its hydrogenation tail gas treatment catalyst plant in Saudi Arabia. Sika is making more mortar and concrete admixtures in Kazakhstan (aka the #1 exporter of potassium). Perstorp started making esters at its site in Amsterdam. Neste started making sustainable aviation fuel at its plant in the Netherlands. Nippon Shokubai plans on building a LiFSI battery electrolyte plant.