EnergyEne looks for investment, expansion

WOOSTER, Ohio—EnergyEne Inc. is getting hands-on in the development of guayule as an alternative to natural rubber with a radiation attenuation glove that doesn't trigger latex allergies and has better polymer-filler interaction, according to CEO Katrina Cornish.

The company, incorporated in 2013, is focused on high-performance latex products, beginning with the latex glove, which debuted at the International Latex Conference in Fairlawn, Ohio, last year. Cornish said EnergyEne currently is in due diligence for investment, and is in discussions to secure a larger acreage of existing guayule. No further details were shared about either development.

In addition to not being an allergy-causing latex, guayule is a linear polymer, as opposed to Hevea's branch polymer, a difference that changes how they interact in compounds, she said.

"The linear polymer allows you to get much better polymer-filler interaction with guayule composites than you get with Hevea composites," Cornish said. "Along with it being softer and more elastic than other polymers, it's got a lot more room in it for filler, and is able to maintain medical glove performance and reach attenuation standards."

Since radiation attenuation fillers are diluent fillers, not reinforcing fillers, other compounds can only take on so much capacity before falling below medical glove standards. Current Hevea-based gloves require two layers, restricting movement. Guayule has much more room to work with, which allows them to reach medical standards with a single pair of gloves, she said.

As a product, the gloves are meant to help build the young business, as the standard personal protective equipment gloves can sell for between $45-$55, and at current attenuation levels, require double-gloving, she said.

"It's a relatively small, high-margin, niche product," she said. "If we could sell for $55-$60 when our raw material is only $1.50-$2, there's a lot of room in there to fund a small-scale crop and a small-scale business."

EnergyEne is busy working on other prototypes for guayule products where it can improve the performance over what's currently in the market, such as lineman's gloves, weather balloons and condoms, she said.

"We want to try to stay in the smaller markets, initially, where people want to have the best one of its kind," Cornish said.

The company is operating out of its pilot plant in Wooster under an agreement with Ohio State University, which is part owner of EnergyEne. The firm currently is expanding its capacity from that plant with the help of an Ohio Technology Validation and Start-up Fund Phase 2 grant of an undisclosed amount. The pilot plant produces guayule shrub into latex as a gas, after which some of the latex is turned into solid rubber, and most of it is held for the latex market.

Once all of the upgrades are in place and if enough shrub is brought into run full time—although that's not the current plan—the facility could produce about a ton each week. In 2018, because it's a pilot operation and the shrub has to be shipped in, the company will aim to produce between 5-10 tons, Cornish said.

"That's where we think the real opportunity for funding increased capacity with low acreage lies, so you can expand both process and capacity, and then acreage," she said. The plant has a computerized dipper on-site made by Diptech Systems Inc. in Kent, Ohio, along with other larger equipment for production.

Building capacity

Guayule can't be grown in Ohio, as the plant prefers arid regions, so guayule currently is shipped from a location in Arizona, though Cornish said that's only a short-term source. The goal is to build more capacity elsewhere in a guayule-growing region. The company also has all of its patents except one, and those that are pending are to the point that the patent office is allowing claims, she said.

EnergyEne also is collaborating closely with Piedmont BioProducts L.L.C. in Gretna, Va., a biofuels company, as the gas from latex extraction is very high-energy, she said.

"We get a crude bio-oil of 50,000 joules per gram using their process to convert our bagasse, which can be easily upgraded to transportation fuel," Cornish said. "It's more than double yellow pine, so it's just amazing. The difference is that we could come in with a very low-cost fuel, because the cost of the feedstock is borne by the value of the latex in these niche markets when we're still small-scale."

Cornish, who has worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has continued to push for its expansion onto the larger stage of commercial production. In the process of moving forward with EnergyEne, she smoothed out some of the issues in processing latex to make production more efficient, she said.

"In our process, we particularly hit the various pain points to make sure we can get very high efficiency of extraction and high quality, and we have achieved these goals," she said. "I basically have spent too much of my life with guayule latex to not see it as a commercial product because it is such a great rubber material."

As a material, guayule is soft, stretchy and strong, and doesn't contain the proteins that cause type one latex allergy, Cornish said. The process they use to compound it also avoids contact allergic reactions from rubber chemicals as well, making them circumallergenic formulations.

If EnergyEne produces the radiation attenuation glove in Wooster with its pilot plant capacity, it could make a few million dollars, but it would take a long time to be able to build a $20 million integrated biorefinery at that pace, Cornish said.

"We really need the investment to build the larger one," she said.

One major goal is to break into the tire market, but guayule production will need much larger scale to compete head-to-head with commodity rubber, she said.

"You can't compete in the commodity market with 100 acres, or even 1,000 acres. To scale these crops, we have to find non-tire markets that will pay the price to have the benefits of these materials," she said.

Global guayule

Cornish, the Ohio Research Scholar and Endowed Chair in Bioemergent Materials at Ohio State University, is also the CEO of two sister companies: EnergyEne Australia Pty. Ltd. and EnergyEne Africa. Similar to EnergyEne in North America, the companies are run in partnership with OSU. Guayule grows well in both locations, as a semi-arid plant, Cornish said. In Australia, the development especially is geared toward the latex biofuel application.

EnergyEne Africa is located in South Africa, where the crops and facility provide local jobs, cooking fuel and necessary products like condoms. Though details about the plants weren't disclosed, both facilities are capable of latex extraction.

Going forward, EnergyEne will continue working on securing investment, which will enable the company to produce latex by the end of 2018 on a much larger scale, Cornish said.

As the company looks for investment, it's reaching a critical stage where potential for growth and emerging opportunity could be coming together, she said.

"Last year's the first time we've had shortfalls in natural rubber production in quite a while, and it's probably going to get worse," she said. "I think guayule is a great supplement to Hevea, and has other bells and whistles. We really need to capitalize on those unique features so we can pay for the crop expansion through profits, not through subsidies. That's the only thing that will make it work, in my opinion."