Syngas startup Ze-gen takes $20M to torch trash
Ze-gen, a company that plans to round up waste from construction sites and turn it into gases that can be used to generate electricity, has won $20 million in funding to help build its first full-size facility.
Based in Boston, Mass., Ze-gen has been moving quickly to prove its process at a small test facility, completed in the second half of last year, and start building a larger, commercial plant.
The gasification process is a bit different from regular burning in that the heating takes place under contained and pressurized conditions. For Ze-gen, that means physically pushing wood scrap into molten metal (also made from scrap material). Aside from causing far less pollution than a normal burn, gasification also produces more desirable byproducts — in this case, hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
Although there are only a handful of companies pursuing trash gasification, a similar process is used on different substances by other companies, like Range Fuels, which plans to use harvested wood and agricultural leavings to create cellulosic ethanol. A number of utilities also hope to use coal gasification technologies to clean up the dirty fuel. In general, gasification is considered attractive because it is a fairly well-proven technology.
Omar Zawawi Establishment, a division of the Omzest Group in from Oman, led the round, with participation from previous investors Flagship Ventures, VantagePoint Venture Partners and the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation. Ze-gen’s first round of $2.5 million took place almost exactly a year ago.
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About the Author, Chris Morrison
Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.