Chapter 11

I piddled around in the office for a while. I read a few blogs and chatted on IM with a few of my Internet buddies. After this wild excitement palled, I decided to head over to the lab and see what Don had on his mind.

"Hey, Marian, would you call over to the lab and let Don know I'm on the way over?"

"Sure John. I already told them about next week"

I put on my best, perplexed expression. "What about next week?" I said.

Marian looked at me as if I'd lost my mind, before realizing I was putting her on.

"John! You are an asshole- you know that? I was about to call the boys in the white suits!", she said trying very hard not to laugh.

I wasn't even trying not to laugh. "Gotcha!"

"Yes, you got me!", she said, finally giving in to the giggles, "And one of these days I'll get my revenge!"

"When you finally get me for all the things I deserve it for, the shock will probably kill or cripple me" I said with a wink as I headed out the door.

"Well don't expect any sympathy from me when it does John!"

"I won't, Marian. See you tomorrow I expect".

"See you, boss. Take care."

I closed the office door behind me and went down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door. I contemplated taking the truck, but decide that the short walk would do me good.

The office was located in the former administration building of the powder plant. We'd renovated it and reserved the second floor for ourselves. We'd been surprisingly successful in leasing out the space of the first floor. It was about eighty percent occupied and was bringing in a decent lease revenue.

The lab was in a turn of the century-style masonry industrial building. Originally this building had been the quality control and product-testing lab. It had high ceilings and a saw-tooth roof with vertical windows facing south to catch the light. It was surprisingly well lit and airy even in it's original condition. We'd gutted most of the interior and installed state of the art labs and offices.

Don was waiting for me in the lobby as I came up the steps. Don was a PhD chemist out of Ohio State. He'd worked for Upjohn in Michigan until Pfizer bought them and shut the facility down. He'd then gotten a job with DowElanCo (Dow/Eli Lilly) in their crop science R&D, until they pulled the plug on his group. He'd heard of us through a mutual friend. His resume was impeccable and I hired him to manage the lab after a five-minute interview. I continually teased him about him being the "kiss of death" for any facility he worked at. He was unbelievably competent and I often wondered if his former employers had even the faintest idea what they'd lost when they let him go.

"Hi Boss, I have something to show you that I think you're going to like". He was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Something was in the air here.

"OK- but how about giving me a hint."

"Nope- I want you to see this for yourself. C'mon!"

We went through the double door, into the main lab and along a row of lab benches until we got to the conference room at the back of the building.

"We've got it set up in here".

On the conference table was a series of beakers containing a variety of violet liquids, and a flat-panel monitor. Everyone that worked in the lab was congregated around the conference table. There were lots of poorly concealed grins.

"OK boss, you remember that we've been looking into cellulosic ethanol for a while. Specifically, we've been trying to improve the cellulase enzymes that you need to break down the cellulose into simple sugars that can be fermented into ethanol."

"Yeah, I remember that. The last time we had a project meeting, you told me that you were making some progress. Is that what this is about?"

"Yep- turns out we made a little more than just progress. We actually made a breakthrough!" Don looked as excited as I'd ever seen him.

"No kidding? So fill me in!"

Don grinned. "Well, it was actually Leslie that came up with the idea. She figured out a way to analyze the specific area of the commercial enzyme that does the actual breakdown of the bond. Once she'd done that, she ran a series of computer simulations to try to work out a more powerful active site.

Then, she took it over to us synthesis guys, and we played around with a lot of ideas until we hit on a metalloporphyrin complex that was about 100 times as active as the commercial enzyme, the problem was that it wasn't very soluble. We took a long-chain quat and stuck a couple of them on there, and voila- we had a nicely soluble cellulase that wasn't just 100 times as active as the best commercial product, it was 10,000 times as active!"

I was stunned. I had been hoping for some modest improvements over current commercial products, but this was a huge breakthrough, assuming it could be made economically.

"So, Don, what're the economics, and what's the stuff on the table about?"

"This is the demonstration. The beakers represent wood pulp that's been treated with our new product- nothing special has been done, but pulping the wood to break up the fibers, along with raising the pH to 10 with ammonia, and adding a bit of surfactant to make sure everything gets wetted. Each beaker was started 2 hours after the one before it in line.

You can see how quickly this stuff works. After 18 hours, there's practically nothing left undissolved but the lignin, which is that tarry goo floating on top, which we can skim or centrifuge off. This lignin should be a lot cleaner than the stuff you get from pulp mills, since its not treated with anything but the cellulase. I think maybe it will have some value on its own, if not, we can burn it to fire the process."

Better still, it has worked with every form of cellulose we've hit it with: pine, hardwoods, wheat straw, cornstalks, sugarcane bagasse, recycled paper, and algal material.

"now, take a look at this."

Don reached over and hit a key on the keyboard under the monitor.

The screen lit up showing a stirred beaker full of brownish pulp. A caption running along the bottom explained what was happening.

Aqueous ammonia was added until the attached pH meter showed a pH of 10 and a drop of wetting agent was mixed in. After a few seconds, a few drops of a deep violet liquid were added. "That's' the cellulase", Don said. "Now, we go to time-lapse", he added.