Today’s society depends upon a wide variety of chemicals currently derived from the hydrocarbons in petroleum or crude oil.

These chemicals can also be obtained from plants and plant-based materials. Athenix technologies make it possible to develop enhanced plants, microbes, enzymes, and processes to provide renewable resources in a manner which is economically competitive with petroleum-derived materials. Athenix bioconversion activities focus on biologically based manufacturing processes such as fermentation and biocatalysis.

A broad microbial collection and rapid discovery process
Athenix mines its microbial collection for organisms and enzymes to carry out specific chemical reactions. These enzymes and organisms can utilize sugars (cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and starch, e.g.) and a wide array of existing chemical substrates. We have developed processes to release sugars from various biological substrates including corn stover, straws from other crops and industrial by-products like corn fiber and distillers dried grains.

Athenix can improve upon microbial strains and enzymes that can perform chemical syntheses and conversions normally carried out under harsh physical and chemical conditions. Often the bio-based conversion such as fermentation or biocatalysis is less expensive, less polluting and safer than methods based on chemical synthesis alone.

Releasing carbohydrates from diverse substrates
Developing and providing the genes and enzymes to enable bioconversion is our objective. We have developed organisms and processes to release sugars from biological substrates, including:

• corn stover
• straws from other crops
• industrial by-products like corn fiber and distillers dried grains

Developing flexible enzyme product packages
Using high throughput biochemical screening and a focused genomics approach, Athenix is delivering improved enzymes as additives, in microbes, and in plants as a single product platform.

Supporting the renewable resources future
Through biomass conversion we can begin to augment petroleum-derived materials with those based on renewable resources.

Specialty Chemicals and Chemical Feedstocks
Athenix can provide products that will enhance chemicals in many industries such as Automotive, Packaging, Home & Personal Care, Paper and Printing, Construction, Electronics, Water Treatment and Agriculture.

Athenix can use plant-based materials to produce hydrocarbons or carbohydrates that can be converted into specialty chemicals.

Our high throughput screening and discovery efforts provide options for the production of new specialty chemicals by fermentation or biocatalysis.