Solazyme fermentation objectives completed in US

Renewable oil and bioproducts company Solazyme has completed multiple initial fermentations at Archer Daniels Midland’s (ADM) Iowa, US-based facility.

Solazyme claims to have achieved commercial-scale production metrics, linear scalability of its process from laboratory scale and demonstrated the ability to run large scales without contamination.

The fermentations were conducted in veseels with a capacity of approximately 500,000 litres, with an annual production target of 20,000 metric tonnes of oil starting in early 2014 at the ADM facility.

‘Working with ADM’s fermentation team to achieve commercial scale operations at its facility exhibits our ability to scale-in large commercial fermentation facilities quickly,’ says Peter Licari, CTO at Solazyme. ‘We are currently developing commercial facilities in the US, France and Brazil and, with these runs, we have now achieved linear scale-up of over 70,000-fold from our labs.’