NextCAT Gets NSF Award to Help Commercialize Catalyst Technology

by Bryan Sims (Biodiesel Magazine) Detroit-based startup biodiesel technology developer NextCAT Inc. has received $498,830 in funding from a National Science Foundation Phase II Small Business Innovation Research award. The funding will help commercialize alternative biodiesel catalyst technology, developed at the National Biofuels Energy Laboratory at Wayne State University, for integration into existing biodiesel plants.

Specifically, the latest funding, which brings NextCAT’s total grant funding to $1.3 million, will help the company achieve its goal of commercializing a class of heterogeneous solid metal oxide catalysts that are capable of performing esterification and transesterification steps simultaneously in a single pass without consuming the catalyst in the reaction.

...(I)t will offer existing biodiesel producers frontend feedstock flexibility so they can take in high FFA material, like yellow grease or residual corn oil, for conversion to biodiesel. READ MORE