Corn-Sugar Chemical Plant Scores $213M Loan for New Plant

The Department of Energy announced a conditional commitment of $213.6 million for Solugen Inc. to construct a 500,000-sq.-ft facility in Marshall, MN, that will turn corn sugar into chemicals usually made from petroleum.

Solugen will build the biomanufacturing facility in Marshall as part of a strategic partnership with ADM. The new facility will be located adjacent to ADM’s existing corn complex and use dextrose purchased from ADM to scale Solugen’s current line of carbon negative organic acids and develop new molecules to replace existing fossil fuel-based materials. 

The new facility, Bioforge Marshall, will house three modular trains manufacturing various organic acids for use in the concrete, cleaning, agricultural, and energy industries — cutting harmful emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors while helping deliver healthier communities across the nation. As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, this project will create up to 100 jobs during construction and 56 skilled full-time manufacturing jobs once fully operational. 

DOE said the project will trim emissions by 18,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year compared to making chemicals from fossil fuels, which is equivalent to emissions from 3,500 US homes. The agency said Solugen would also help bring industrial production back to the US for chemicals largely produced in other countries. The emissions savings are attributed both to the biogenic uptake of carbon (e.g., absorbed by plants and soil) from the agricultural feedstock as well as the low-emissions production process. Additional environmental benefits are expected to accrue from the reduction of emissions that occur from trans-oceanic shipping when sourcing petroleum feedstock internationally.

Solugen's first commercial production plant, Bioforge Houston, opened in 2021. The facility has demonstrated the ability to produce and commercialize the same organic acids slated for production and sale at Bioforge Marshall. Bioforge Houston has demonstrated an over 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional petroleum-based methods for incumbent chemistries.