Liquid Light

Liquid Light was a chemical technology company focused on converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into valuable industrial chemicals. The firm was founded in 2009 by a team that included Kyle Teamey, Dr. Emily Cole, and Professor Andrew Bocarsly, spinning out of research conducted at Princeton University. The foundational technology originated from work by Bocarsly and his graduate student Cole, who revived and advanced research from the 1990s on the electrochemical conversion of CO2. This academic research, backed by entities like the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, discovered that their process could create compounds with carbon-carbon bonds, significantly broadening the range of potential products. Kyle Teamey, an engineer and entrepreneur, saw the commercial potential and co-founded the company to scale the technology from the lab to an industrial level.

The company's business model centered on licensing its proprietary process technology to chemical manufacturers and industries with significant CO2 emissions. This approach allowed customers to transform a waste stream into a revenue source, decrease reliance on volatile petroleum feedstocks, and lower their carbon footprint. Liquid Light's core technology utilized low-energy catalytic electrochemistry to convert CO2 into multi-carbon chemicals. The process involved mixing CO2 in a chamber with a specialized catalyst and an electrode, using electricity to drive the chemical reaction. By modifying the catalyst, the company could produce over 60 different chemicals, including ethylene glycol, propylene, isopropanol, and acetic acid. Its initial commercial focus was on producing monoethylene glycol (MEG), a chemical with a multi-billion dollar annual market used in plastic bottles, antifreeze, and polyester fibers. The process was designed to be more cost-effective than traditional petroleum-based methods, with one estimate suggesting that a tonne of MEG could be produced from just $125 of CO2.

After its formation, Liquid Light secured funding from investors such as Redpoint Ventures, BP Ventures, and VantagePoint Capital Partners, raising over $35 million. The company gained significant recognition, including winning the CCEMC Grand Challenge. A key milestone was a partnership with Coca-Cola, which uses the chemical derived from CO2 in its plant-based plastic bottles. In January 2017, the Netherlands-based renewable chemistry company Avantium acquired the assets of Liquid Light for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was a strategic move for Avantium to integrate Liquid Light's electro-catalysis platform and CO2 conversion technology with its own expertise in biomass conversion, aiming to turn waste CO2 into a valuable feedstock for sustainable chemicals and plastics.