Co-Founders of COOloop Dr Rajan Lakshman and Ike Omambala are using £150 000 Carbon13 Venture Builder funding to commercialise their carbon-negative acetic acid production process.
Working closely under the supervision of Professor Akshat Tanksale and Alan Chaffee at Monash University, Dr Rajan Lakshman spent time during the Covid19 pandemic researching ways to decarbonise industrial chemicals. The research started with a novel iron-based catalyst that coverts both CO₂ and methanol into acetic acid. With further development the team went onto remove the need for the methanol intermediate, by producing a cobalt-nickel bimetallic catalyst that can produce acetic acid directly from CO₂.
Acetic acid sits at the foundation of countless chemical production processes that give rise to materials ranging from plastics to textiles and pharmaceuticals. COOloop has significant potential for impact, given that the world produces around 20 million tonnes of acetic acid daily, currently sourced entirely from fossil fuels.
The potential is substantial, with the acetic acid market worth about $13 billion today and expected to grow to $27 billion by 2031. Dr Rajan Lakshman and Ike Omambala will work together, combining science and entrepreneurship, to scale the technology, optimise costs, and integrate the catalyst into industrial operations.
