CSBR, Cashew Shell BioRefinery

In a very simple process, we break down cardanol's molecular structure (Cashew-Shell-Oil) into its aromatic and aliphatic fractions and (from there) select high-value 100% bio monomeric bases, used as such or further modified into different highly functional bio-products.

Sales of bio-chemicals per kg unit, for both low and high specialistic applications.
The company is already active in most of the identified sectors, with own contacts, but primarily in Europe. We are establishing key partnerships worldwide to help us boosting the related demand in regions with limited reach for us (Asia, Oceania, Europe), as well as for applications, requiring different expertise than ours (pharma and cosmetics for example).
Overall, we are working in market segments such as constructions, animal husbandry, pharma, surfactants and detergents, cosmetics and fragrances and industrial manufacturing.

The technology has been patented in 2014 by the University of St Andrews, with inventor our CTO, David Cole-Hamilton. The patent has been licensed with worldwide exclusivity to the company ; it also encloses a title-transfer clause after a certain amount of paid royalties.
Currently we keep producing new knowhow , in relation to the scaleup of the technology.

We have defined important applications and clients, based on the proposed products, such as:
1. linear 3-non-enyl-phenol (3NP) ethoxylates in surfactants and detergents
2. the 3-vinylphenol (3VP) in adhesives and polymerisation
3. the 3-propylphenol (3PP) as a pheromone attracting tse-tse flies in Africa and many others.
These are all applications that have already been backed up by peer-reviewed scientific articles and/or are based on the very similar structure of the proposed products to the standard counter-parts currently in use by the industry. Overall, we are waiting to obtain results ourselves, based on the started projects.

Climate change, depletion of fossil fuels and the need to feed an increasing world population require a change in chemical manufacture from fossil fuel based to biobased without reducing the land area available for food. One resource that meets these requirements is an aromatic-aliphatic molecule, derivative of the cashew-nut-shells, called cardanol, underexploited and with a worldwide availability of 700,000tn pa.
Today, in the industry cardanol is functionalised and polymerised to get to polymers applicable in coatings, adhesives, foams and surfactants. However, we have demonstrated that cardanol (as a base) can be improved for its performance in the above mentioned fields and made applicable to many others (pharma, fragrances, cosmetics, insect-attractants and more) by taking a different approach.
In a very simple process, we break down its molecular structure into its aromatic and aliphatic parts and (from there) select high-value 100% bio monomeric bases, used as such or further modified into different highly functional bio-products.
We propose to produce two versatile platform chemicals, 3-non-8-enylphenol (3-NP) and 3-vinylphenol (3-VP) directly from cardanol.