Solugen is a Houston-based chemical engineering startup whose main aim is to decarbonize the chemical industry. And their main weapon is nature itself. For quite some time now, Solugen has been producing hydrogen peroxide through yeast enzymes. This is their eco-friendly industrial cleaner, which is competing against hard-hitting chemicals in the market used for oil treatment.
Solugen has often featured on the Forbes Next Billion Dollar startup list. And, they have decided to start producing sanitizers, which they plan to donate to charities around the world. They also brought out natural cleaning wipes, which they later transformed into a different sister company and sold for over a million dollars.
How Did The Idea For An Eco-Friendly Industrial Cleaner Come Up?
One of the founders of the startup, Gaurab Chakrabarti, once saw that the yeast enzymes he was working on produced hydrogen peroxide. Now, his project was its application in cancer cells. But with accidents such as these, it’s hard to not patent it and start making something worthwhile.
As it stands, hydrogen peroxide is one of the main components of industrial cleaners. After that, he built an empire with his friend, Sean Hunt, by creating Solugen. Since then, they have been producing PeroxyZen. An eco-friendly industrial cleaner is different from a normal one. Neither petroleum nor its products are used in any production stage for eco-friendly cleaners like this.
Interestingly, the solution thus created also instilled organic acids inside it. This substance is crucial in dissolving mineral scale buildups, something that increases its usage exponentially.
The Creators Of Solugen Create Multiple Sister Companies
They submitted their pitch in an MIT competition, wherein they won $10,000 as one of the finalists. After that, they decided to produce this hydrogen peroxide en masse. Using Facebook, the team decided to market its eco-friendly industrial cleaner. It was a hit in spas- owing to its organic creation. Since then, they haven’t looked back.
After conquering most of the spas near Texas, they decided to create eco-friendly wet wipes. For this, they created bio-peroxide under a sister company, Ode To Clean. The wipes are produced from plant fibers, which again gave it authenticity.
After procuring close to $5 billion by selling their wet wipes, they decided to steer their company towards wastewater cleanup. Drilling oil has always been a very dirty process, with contaminations clogging up pathways. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency takes it upon itself to see that the wastewater is decontaminated before being used. This is where Solugen comes in again.
Phosphate-based chemicals emit 3 tons of CO2 per 1 ton produced. Solugen’s eco-friendly wastewater cleaner rather removes 1.35 tons of CO2 for every ton produced. Solugen is slowly turning around the entire chemical industry towards a new future, with its eco-friendly industrial cleaner and many other products.
