We may be an entire century down the ammonia production learning curve, but Ammobia thinks we still have a ways to go: the startup just raised a $7.5m seed round (primarily from the corporate venture world, e.g. including Shell and Chevron) to build a pilot scale version of their novel reactor, which they expect to deliver at 50% lower capex and with 10-40% lower opex per pound. They aren’t being explicit about what drives that innovation, but their pending patent suggests that they are using a blend of catalyst and sorbent to effectively remove ammonia as it forms (driving the reaction forward, increasing single pass conversion, reducing recycle, and therefore reducing reactor size). Not sure if this concept has been tried in another process… let me know if you’re familiar. [LINK]

Trafigura, a Singapore-based commodities trading firm, just signed a binding 6-year offtake agreement to buy 100% of the biogas-derived sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Syzygy’s first commercial site (which will be located in Uruguay). Syzygy is trying to commercialize a photocatalytic alternative to syngas production—which, to me, sounds like pseudoscience (mostly because photocatalysis wasn’t part of my undergraduate chemical engineering education), but I’m not sure it actually matters—Uruguay lacks domestic oil production, imports all of their jet fuel, and has an ample supply of biogas from dairy farms (Syzygy is going from biogas to syngas). This looks like a match made in heaven to me: it’s a cheap option for Trafigura that costs enough to finance Syzygy’s experiment, and I hope the best for them because I prefer the world where photocatalysis works at scale. [LINK]

Similarly, Traxys, a Luxembourg-based commodities trading firm, signed a binding 10-year offtake agreement to buy 100% of the lithium carbonate from Lilac Solutions’ first commercial site (which will be located at Utah’s Great Salt Lake). Lilac is commercializing a direct lithium extraction (DLE) process technology that performed well at both pilot and demonstration scale. Like Syzygy, this is generally low risk for the trading company, but it’s the sort of thing that makes FIDs happen. And we want more FIDs. [LINK]