We’ve checked the numbers and confirmed something exciting – our production platform has been fermenting continuously for 180 days!
No resets. No restarting the process. Six months of continuous circular diol production, and it is still running.
Six months is a long time to ask a biological process, and the equipment around it, to behave. Not everything went to plan!
Several power outages occurred along the way. The team had to quickly respond, and adapt, to make our system able to bridge shorter power interruptions with measures in place to maintain gassing.
Through all of that, the fermentation kept going. Reactor conditions remained stable, and feeding and harvesting continued as planned.
That matters because continuous production is about more than keeping a reactor running. Batch production loses time at both ends of every run. Continuous operation removes those boundaries and allows us to harvest steadily, reducing the need for larger downstream equipment.
We are now taking six months of real operating data into optimization at our 100L pilot plant, alongside further work on automation, monitoring and real-time process analytics through our EveryInsight™️ platform.
➡️180 days is a milestone. More importantly, it gives us a stronger foundation to scale from!
Fermentation is still running, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, month by month.
This achievement was made possible by our brilliant team Leonie Rominger, Patrick Schweizer, Matteo Cociancich, Varun Hirapara and Gerardo de Jesús Duarte Barahona and the support of SPRIND – Bundesagentur für Sprunginnovationen and their amazing team of innovators and futurists.