“Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations.”
Lignocellulosic materials have long been recognized as sustainable sources of biofuels and biomaterials. However, the biomass cell walls are naturally resistant to any modification or deconstruction. This natural tendency of the biomass cell walls to resist change is collectively known as "biomass recalcitrance" or "biomass inertia".
STC specializes in providing innovative solutions to overcome biomass recalcitrance in order to produce an engineered biomass product for a variety of applications. This process is called "biorefining". STC commercializes the art of biorefining to produce sustainable, engineered biomass feedstocks for renewable power, fuels, chemicals, and carbon to achieve socio-economic optimization of energy and environment.
Successful biorefining commences with controlled dehydration. ECPI's state of the art, patented Z8 rotary dryer provides controlled dehydration of various biomass species to a low moisture content while simultaneously preventing the production of volatile organic compounds (VOC's).
STC offers complete integration of our patented thermal-treatment technology into existing and new biomass processing plants to produce the next-generation of engineered biomaterials: dehydrated biomass, phytosanitized biomass, torrefied biomass, biochar and biocarbon. Through our Technology License, STC will provide a complete set of deliverables including techno-economic feasibility studies, process engineering and plant layout, engineered biomaterial prototyping and new market development.
STC thermal-treatment technology can process all forms of biomass resources including underutilized biomass such as agricultural wastes, animal wastes, wastes from forest siviculture, and dedicated energy crops into engineered biomaterials. Thermally-treated engineered biomaterials will serve various applications in the field of food, feed, energy, climate and performance materials to nurture our ecosystem and replenish the health of our planet and all who dwell therein.
STC proposes the synergistic pathway called "Food First": that growing more food will provide more biomass residues that can be biorefined to produce engineered feedstocks for energy, fuels, chemicals, and other biomaterials.
Growing more food will serve to solve the problems of global hunger and malnutrition, create sustainable jobs with energy independence, and provide sustainable feedstocks for clean energy and a clean environment.
