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LANSING, Mich., June 14, 2004 – John Van Leeuwen, chief executive of EcoSynthetix Inc., was worried that his company’s technology was too boring to interest attendees at last month’s NanoBusiness conference in New York.
While the Lansing, Mich.-firm’s product, EcoSphere cardboard adhesive, based on nanoparticles of starch, isn’t exactly sexy; it is an intriguing illustration of how small tech can improve production of a low-tech cardboard box.
As Van Leeuwen explained, cardboard manufacturers currently use about four billion pounds of cornstarch adhesives a year to glue together the paper layers that make up corrugated containers. (Cardboard is actually composed of multiple sheets of thick, stiff paper).
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Founded in 1996 by Steven Bloembergen who is now EcoSynthetix’s executive vice president, the company spent seven years perfecting a chemical and mechanical process to convert granules of cornstarch into smaller particles between 50 and 100 nanometers.
According to Van Leeuwen, the nanostarch powder has several advantages over the conventional starch adhesives that cardboard plants make and use in 1,700 production facilities around the globe.
Because EcoSynthetix starch is nanoscale, it can mix into a liquid that contains less water than is possible when using non-nano cornstarch. The reduced water content means less energy and time is required to dry the adhesives. Van Leeuwen said that drying ovens would then run at almost half their current temperature. Lower temperatures would also reduce waste through less warping, and increase output by reducing the required cooling time.
Most cardboard manufacturing facilities have their own recipes for mixing up their own gluey batches in starch kitchens” but have to use the material immediately before it gels, clumps or changes in consistency. With EcoSynthetix’s ultra-fine starch, which it plans to distribute in powder form, the nanoscale particles remain stable in liquid longer; this means the starch can still be used the next day, rather than having to be thrown away.
Of course, with bulk cornstarch costing about ten cents a pound, EcoSynthetix must make a strong case that its more-expensive materials will more than pay for themselves in the end due to the lower production costs. Van Leeuwen wouldn’t say exactly how much more per pound the nanostarch is expected to cost. At least initially, however, he said it would likely be several times more expensive than bulk cornstarch.
Nanotech analyst Neil Gordon, a partner with Sygertech in Montreal, Canada, said that in making its business case “it would be useful for EcoSynthetix to characterize its adhesion’s performance in areas such as buckling under compression, or with the loss of adhesion strength over time.”
Van Leeuwen said that test results have shown that the nanomaterial already matches the adhesive performance of current starch.
To help make that case and bring the bio-nano material to market, the company has partnered with H.B. Fuller Company in St. Paul Minn., a 100-year-old producer of adhesives, sealants and other materials; and Cerestar, a European manufacturer of starch products that agricultural and food giant Cargill Inc. acquired in 2002.
In March, the venture capital arms of Cargill and H.B. Fuller participated in an $8.7-million second round of fundraising for EcoSynthetix. Seven other investors, including VentureLink Diversified Balanced Fund Inc. and 401 Capital Partners Inc., backed the firm.
In addition to challenging conventional starch adhesives, the company also believes that EcoSphere powder may be a less costly replacement for petroleum-based glue used to laminate sheets of graphics to cardboard containers. Van Leeuwen said that the industry currently uses more than a billion pounds of petroleum-based PVA (polyvinyl acetate) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) per year. Now at 55 cents a pound, the cost of PVA is likely to keep rising, especially if oil prices remain high.
Unlike EcoSynthetix’s material, Van Leeuwen said PVA waste is not recyclable in-house. In addition, PVA is difficult to clean off production machines. EcoSynthetix estimated that cardboard makers lose three-to-five days a month cleaning PVA off idled machines. Likewise, the same firms are also faced with cleanup expenses.
EcoSynthetix wants to prove it can produce its material in extremely large quantities with good quality control. “A company like Nano-Tex makes a few barrels of material a week,” said Van Leeuwen. “We have to ship truckloads.”
Van Leeuwen said that EcoSynthetix’s strategy is to outsource production to companies that have excess capacity. In test runs, “we’ve produced 4,000 pounds an hour ” at a single facility using its existing equipment.
Sygertech’s Gordon added that as the company reduces prices through increased production volume, it would also be better positioned to woo more cost-sensitive users.
In such a high-volume and competitive industry, Gordon said he expects that users will want to know exactly how much they can save “in energy, water, preparation ingredients, wastage and disposal,” compared to the total cost of switching to EcoSynthetix’s product.