Two Ohio Soybean Council Funded Technologies Named 2016 R&D 100 Awards Finalists
September 2, 2016
Two technologies recently developed through Ohio Soybean Council (OSC) and soybean checkoff collaborations have achieved ‘finalist’ designations for the R&D 100 Awards, with winners to be announced in November. Both technologies, Soy-PK Resin and Bio-YIELD bioreactor, leverage the natural properties of soybeans to increase the sustainability and improve health in modern industries.
Since the early 1990s, OSC has engaged in public and private collaborations that encourage rapid commercialization of new commercial and industrial uses of soybeans.
“It’s important that we continue to explore new ways to utilize our soybeans,” said Nathan Eckel, OSC Research Committee chair and soybean farmer from Wood County. “Seeing technologies that we’ve helped develop with some amazing partners receive this kind of recognition is fantastic.”
About Soy-PK Resin:
A finalist in the R&D 100 Materials category and Green Tech Special Recognition (i.e., innovations that help make our environment greener and our goal towards energy reduction closer), Soy-PK offers a safe alternative to epoxy resins containing bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA represents a health hazard, especially in food contact applications—BPA-based polycarbonate plastic bottles have been banned for infant feeding usage and California relisted BPA as a hazardous chemical in May 2015.
The Soy-PK Resin offers a practical and readily implementable drop-in replacement for BPA-containing epoxy coatings in metal beer, beverage, and food can coatings. The Soy-PK Resin offers a viable option to displace a significant amount of fossil-based BPA-containing epoxy resins with a renewable-source raw material, greatly improving industry’s environmental footprint. Other team members include Battelle and Redwood Innovations.
For more information about the Soy-PK resin, OSC’s role in its development, and/or licensing, please contact Mr. Barry McGraw, Director, Ohio Soybean Council (bmcgraw@soyohio.org; 614-310-1804).
About Bio-YIELD bioreactor: A finalist in the R&D 100 Process/Prototyping category and Green Tech Special Recognition the 3Bar Biologics Bio-YIELD bioreactor is a patent-pending device that enables farmers to grow their own beneficial microbes, enabling increased crop yield with reduced chemical inputs. This approach addresses one of the most significant sustainability challenges of our time: to increase agricultural production while reducing use of resources and impact on climate.
The Bio-YIELD bioreactor uses a disposable inoculant system that delivers fresher, more viable microbes versus competitor processes. The system opens the commercialization potential of numerous beneficial, naturally occurring microbes that have been proven in research over the past two decades but never before available commercially in a viable state.
For more information about Bio-YIELD please contact Mr. Bruce Caldwell, Founder and CEO, 3Bar Biologics (brucecaldwell@3barbiologics.com; 614-271-9388).
