Imperial entrepreneurs win European clean technology business prize

A team from Imperial were awarded third place at the ClimateLaunchpad EU Finals for their technology which converts waste products into biofuels.

Chrysalis Technologies is a start-up company founded by researchers from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Florence Gschwend, Agi Brandt-Talbot and Jason Hallett, in collaboration with John Hamlin from Imperial Innovations. Their BioFlex solvent technology makes use of contaminated waste wood, which cannot be recycled and often ends up at landfill sites, and converts it into feedstocks for commodities. The process, which is an ionic liquid based lignocellulose fractionation, is commercially viable and produces a value of £150 per tonne of wood. Around 1m tonnes of waste construction wood is landfilled in the UK and the wide uptake of this process has the potential to improve both the environmental and economic sustainability of the industry.

Having already finished top of the UK national finals, the Chrysalis team pitched their idea at the Climate Launchpad EU Finals on 7-8 October in Talinn Estonia. They competed against 86 other teams from 30 countries and took home a very impressive third place prize. They received a cash prize of 2500 euro and as one of the top ten competitors they also secured a space on the ClimateKIC accelerator programme.

Florence Gschwend at the final pitch of the competition

Florence Gschwend, a PhD student at Imperial and co-founder of Chrysalis, said “Sending waste construction wood to landfill is both economically wasteful and environmentally damaging. Our process makes use of this waste and offers a lower feedstock cost to producers of bioderived products while improving the environmental performance of both the production of bioderived products as well as the disposal of hazardous waste wood. We’re absolutely delighted to have been placed in the top three of the competition. This now gives us the opportunity to make a real impact with our ideas and create lasting change.”

The Bioflex process

The ClimateLaunchpad is the world’s largest cleantech business idea competition run by Climate-KIC, an organisation which creates opportunities for innovators to address climate change and shape the world’s next economy. The aim of the competition is to create a stage for unlocking Europe’s cleantech potential that addresses climate change. Climate-KIC Accelerator provides fast-track entrepreneurship education, top-notch tools and techniques and intensive coaching in order to help early stage startups take their cleantech and low carbon ideas further.

Many congratulations to the team for this fantastic achievement. We wish them all the best and continued success with the development of their startup.

Find out more about Chrysalis Technologies.