Origin Materials has announced the startup of its Sarnia facility, the world’s first commercial CMF [chloromethyl furfural] plant.
The company, which produces sustainable materials, said Origin 1 started running earlier this week.
Co-Founder and Co-CEO John Bissell called it a "tremendous accomplishment and milestone" when it comes to decarbonizing materials.
"This plant substantially scales up our revolutionary core technology platform. We expect the power of our platform intermediates, CMF and HTC, to be transformative for the chemical industry and how the world generally makes things,” said Bissell.
CMF is a chemical that can be used to make downstream products and can be used in several sustainable products, such as clothing and plastics. HTC (hydrothermal carbon) involves the production of sustainable carbon black for automotive tires.
“The commercialization of a molecule like CMF is historic. After working with CMF for over a decade at pilot scale, we couldn’t be more excited to begin commercial production here in Sarnia,” said Bissell.
He told Sarnia News Today the project has created many new jobs.
"I think it's 25 for operations, give or take, and then we've had quite a few folks hired for analytical work and engineering support for the last couple of years, so obviously those [individuals] will all continue," said Bissell.
The California-based company first announced plans to build a facility in Sarnia in 2017.
"We've been working on this project for a couple of years and it's exciting to get it to this point," Bissell said. "We think of it as a pretty strategic asset, where we can demonstrate technology and we can produce new products and all sorts of things. So, this is just the beginning from our perspective, but it's exciting to get to this beginning."
Bissell said demand from customers is already high.
"We started a couple years ago at about $1 billion of demand for our products -- across plants, not just for one plant -- and we've moved that up to about $9 billion," he said.
The company marked Origin 1's mechanical completion earlier this year.
“The startup of Origin 1 is a testament to the strength of our team in the face of pandemic and related supply-chain headwinds,” said Bissell. “We are excellently positioned to meet the massive customer demand for our renewable, carbon negative products, as we continue to execute on our mission to enable the world’s transition to sustainable materials.”
-With files from Melanie Irwin
