Newlight Achieves Commercial Scale Production of AirCarbon

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Newlight Technologies (www.newlight.com) announced today that the company has achieved a breakthrough milestone in scaling up the company's AirCarbon production technology to commercial scale at a multi-acre production site in California.

The successful commercial scale-up of the AirCarbon technology represents a landmark event for Newlight and the company's carbon capture efforts, demonstrating the ability of Newlight's carbon sequestration technology to operate at high efficiency at large industrial scale. 

"This is the moment we have been working towards since Newlight was founded in 2003: to grow the AirCarbon technology to commercial scale, and to demonstrate that we can use carbon sequestration to make materials that can replace oil on a market-driven basis," said Newlight CEO, Mark Herrema.

The company's commercial site is a four-story operation with a multi-million pound per year nameplate production capacity, using air and captured methane-based carbon emissions from a farm to produce AirCarbon.

"This milestone is a testament to the decade of research operations behind us, the tremendous personnel involved, the detailed engineering and preparation behind the scale-up, and the robust nature of the AirCarbon technology we have developed," said Newlight CTO, Kenton Kimmel.

With two facilities in California, Newlight is working to expand its carbon capture operations at other sites throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

In conjunction with the launch of its first commercial product, AirCarbon-based chairs, in November with KI (www.ki.com), the company, according to Herrema, has shifted its focus. 

"We have spent over a decade optimizing our technology. Today, we have a four-story plant capturing carbon that would otherwise go into the air, using that carbon to make products that would otherwise be made from oil.  As a result, our efforts have shifted from technology development to commercial expansion."

ABOUT NEWLIGHT

Newlight Technologies (www.newlight.com) is a sustainable materials company dedicated to using carbon capture technology to produce clean, high-performance materials that maintain performance, reduce cost, and displace oil with carbon that would otherwise become a part of the air.

Founded in 2003, Newlight has invented, patented, and commercialized AirCarbon™, a material made from air and captured carbon that can match the performance of oil-based plastics while out-competing on price, representing a market-driven solution to carbon capture.  AirCarbon is currently being used to manufacture furniture, bags, caps, and a variety of other products, with partners including Fortune 500 companies and brand-name market leaders.

In recognition of the company's technological and commercialization achievements, Newlight was named "Most Innovative Company of the Year" in 2013, and AirCarbon was named "Biomaterial of the Year" and  "Tech Innovation of the Year" in 2013.  Newlight also received a R&D 100 Award for AirCarbon in 2013 as "one of the 100 most technologically significant innovations of the year."  

For more information and for media inquiries, please visit www.newlight.com.

SOURCE Newlight Technologies, LLC