Biology in the Chemical Sector

Following our first publication, I caught up with Manou Davies, CTO at Anodyne Chemistries, to talk in greater detail about their missions, goals, and some of the issues facing the decarbonisation of the chemical manufacturing industry.

“What do we want the chemical sector of the future to look like?”

The chemical sector, as Manou pointed out early on in our conversation, is responsible for a huge amount of the world’s emissions, and it plays a large part in our everyday lives. Almost everything we touch has its roots in the chemical sector. However, it’s a notoriously difficult industry to decarbonise. The two main issues, she explained, go hand in hand. One of them is that the entire sector is reliant on petro-chemical feedstocks, meaning everything comes from coal, oil and natural gas.

“Nature is the only industry that carries out chemical production on a global scale already.”

The other issue is that the processes for converting these feedstocks into chemicals of interest are very energy intensive, involving high pressures and temperatures, as well as producing large amounts of byproducts that have to be managed. This process itself is responsible for a large amount of emissions.

So, Manou concluded that both new feedstocks, and new manufacturing methods must be unlocked and utilised. That corresponds to quite a large problem, considering the widespread impact of the chemical sector and the vast multitude of chemicals that we rely on. Complex questions as to where to start, how to structure their solutions in a way which builds the ground up, then come into view.

Anodyne’s response to this, and their view on how to solve these issues then came into question. Their solution? A total rethink of feedstocks and processes alike, ensuring that the solution is not centred around replacing the production of just one chemical, but looking at the entire set of feedstocks. But how to implement this strategy is the hard part.

Identifying the production of ammonia as responsible for 2% of the world’s emissions, Anodyne started there, and found that there were microbes in the soil that have the same reaction, nitrogen to ammonia, but at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Manou used this as an example of their willingness to bring together the two worlds of nature and industry, and for that to serve as a framework for their operations.

I think Anodyne and their mission to integrate biological processes into chemical manufacturing is representative of the different types of innovation taking place in the science industry in its mission to decarbonise and adopt sustainable practices.

Author: Charlie Branton

Blog Post - November 26th, 2024

Speaker Series #1

Earlier this month, Dr. Johan Foster from the UBC CHBE department led a wonderful discussion on advanced functional and supramolecular bionanomaterials at our first speaker series event in the Life Sciences Centre. In this presentation, he proudly presented his research on mechanically adaptive materials that confer application in the treatments of Parkinson’s disease, as well as a cell growth scaffold that promotes regeneration of cartilage tissue. He also discussed a project on a water filtration system that supports the absorption of toxic forever chemicals. His research is fascinating, and we are looking forward to observing the revolutionary impacts of these novel technologies.

Speaker Series #2

On November 21st, we hosted our second speaker series event, where we heard Dr Amrit Singh from the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics tell us about his interesting career, and go into detail about his current research. This was centred around his computational biology lab, which is focused on biomarker discovery and developing methods for multi omics data integration and visualisation. We’ve really enjoyed hosting these events and it’s been great to see so many club members attend. Over the next few months, we’re excited to host more speaker series events, other socials, and the BioInnovate Conference in early February!

Report on Anodyne Chemistries

The external affairs portion of our newsletter will be reporting on different sectors of the biotechnology industry, keeping you up to date with new developments in the market and the interesting missions of individual companies.

Our industry spotlight this week will be focused on Anodyne Chemistries. Based in Burnaby, this firm is a perfect example of innovation happening right in our backyard. As a company, their mission is to harness biology to make low carbon chemicals in a process ‘inspired by nature but adapted by science’.

To be more precise, Anodyne uses enzymes to efficiently create chemicals that would otherwise be fossil-fuel derived. Enzymes are found everywhere in nature, enabling essential reactions like digestion and metabolism, to happen at the body’s normal temperature. They do so by acting as catalysts in biological processes, binding to specific molecules and facilitating chemical reactions without being consumed in the process, helping them take place faster and more efficiently.

Through their innovation process, Anodyne has harnessed enzymes to simplify the traditionally complex chemical manufacturing process, allowing them to develop the fossil-free fuels, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals necessary for a green future. By combining electrochemical and biological methods, Anodyne mimics nature, and bypasses the limitations of petrochemical and fermentation processes. In doing so, they’re able to produce chemicals at room temperature using renewable feedstocks without the harmful byproducts typically associated. Because of this, Anodyne has the ability to produce chemicals more affordably, safely and sustainably.

One of the main challenges that Anodyne faces is the affordability of the sustainable products they create. One way in which the firm has tried to address this is through their enzymatic platform, which blends biological evolution and the efficiencies of the chemical industry.

However, chemical manufacturing has proven to be one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. There is still more research, more innovation to be done. The chemicals industry is currently responsible for roughly 10% of global energy consumption and roughly 20% of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Pollution occurs throughout the production process, making the work that firms like Anodyne are carrying out so important. It represents hope in the chemical manufacturing sector of a greener future, reflecting Anodyne’s mission statement of creating “carbon negative products for a climate positive future”.

As a firm, Anodyne has set out six main areas of focus which are as follows: synthetic biology, electrochemistry, enzyme engineering, process engineering, manufacturing and sustainability. Currently, they have several trials underway, testing their technologies on applications like fuels, polymers, food additives and pharmaceutical ingredients. Additionally, Anodyne has initiated collaborative discovery programs with key research universities to broaden the impact of their technologies.

For example, they recently received a $20,000 grant from the Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship which allows Anodyne to partner with Simon Fraser University (SFU) on a joint project aimed at designing enzyme architectures for the production of renewable hydrogen. For masters and doctoral students, this scholarship enables internship opportunities and long-term funding. Through these collaborations, Anodyne and Canadian students can work together to find the answers we need for a greener future.

Beyond partnering with schools, Anodyne has also gained funding to advance a number of their own initiatives. This year, they received a $250,000 grant from Natural Products Canada in March as part of its Commercialisation Programs. With this, Anodyne is able to further develop their Anozymes™, electrically powered enzymes that convert CO2 into organic compounds like alcohol and acids. The industry’s standard high-temperature, carbon-intensive processes could be replaced by the commercialisation of this innovative bioelectric process that generates electricity from renewable sources.

Similarly, the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) has partnered with Anodyne to build out its digital enzyme capabilities. The molecular simulations and modelling of “digital enzymes” are at the forefront of changing the science of enzymology. It is through this simulation and computational design that Anodyne is able to better create engineered enzymes to meet the unique needs of its customers.

Most recently, the B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) awarded grant funding to Anodyne for its EZ-Methanol project. This is a project geared at developing a low-carbon methanol, produced sustainably and without polluting emissions. Using their bio-electric process, with this grant Anodyne would be able to use engineered enzymes and electricity to produce chemicals from carbon dioxide.

With all of these exciting projects, hopefully we will continue to see Anodyne at the forefront of innovation in British Columbia and beyond, working towards a greener future!

Writers:

Charlie Branton, Maria Lauren, and Cindy Luu

Editor:

Charlie Branton