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NextChem awards LanzaTech process design contract for circular ethanol unit at Rome’s Hydrogen Valley project

| By Mary Bailey

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. (Milan, Italy) announced that its subsidiary NextChem, through its subsidiary MyRechemical, has kicked off the engineering phase of Hydrogen Valley in Rome, which is based on NextChem’s waste-to-chemical technology and has received the EU Commission grant within IPCEI HY2USE initiative, as already communicated.

NextChem has started, through MyRechemical, the engineering of waste conversion to Circular Gas that will be the feedstock for the ethanol and hydrogen production. In this framework, NextChem has awarded LanzaTech (Skokie, Ill.) an engineering contract to deliver a process design package for a syngas fermentation unit to produce circular ethanol for sustainable mobility and chemicals based on its biocatalyst technology.

MyRechemical’s chemical conversion technology allows the recovery of waste that cannot be mechanically recycled as well as other types of non-recyclable dry waste. The engineering phase of the Hydrogen Valley is expected to be completed in 2023.

LanzaTech is a global leader in gas fermentation, making sustainable fuels and chemicals via biological conversion of waste carbon emissions, including industrial off-gases. LanzaTech’s expertise in fermentation scale up, reactor design, machine learning and synthetic biology has enabled the company to commercialize its recycling process and demonstrate production of 100 different chemicals.

Alessandro Bernini, Chief Executive Officer of Maire Tecnimont Group and NextChem: “We are very proud to have started the engineering activities of the first NextChem Hydrogen Valley. This agreement with LanzaTech is the first deployment of the existing cooperation with such a recognized player and represents an important step forward in our energy transition journey.”

“Our thanks to the European Commission IPCEI program for enabling this project with NextChem in the Rome area,” said Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. “We expect that combining our technologies will create a closed loop system for a new low-carbon economy. By working together, we can keep fossil resources in the ground, while creating value. We can turn the carbon and hydrogen in these waste streams into the things we use in our daily lives.”