Israel Cellulosic Ethanol Startup Closes $5.5M First Round from Khosla and Burrill

1 June 2009

Israel startup HCL CleanTech Ltd. raised $5.5 million in its first financing round from Burrill & Company and Khosla Ventures. HCL Cleantech uses hydrochloric acid-driven hydrolysis to convert cellulosic wastes to sugars that can be fermented to ethanol and other biofuels.

HCL CleanTech process. Click to enlarge.

Founded by Prof. Avram Baniel and Prof. Ari Eyal in 2007, HCL Cleantech has developed a proprietary full HCL recovery process to enable more economic use of the Bergius cold hydrolysis processs. The Bergius process ensured high yields of sugars, but the costs of recovery and reconcentration of the HCL has made the process costs too high for economic viability.

The HCL CleanTech process recovers HCl in gaseous form from aqueous solutions, enabling the economic use of fuming hydrochloric acid to catalyze the hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose and, generally, all poly-carbohydrates to their constituent monomers. Hydrolysis yields are greater than 95% and Lignin solids are recovered practically intact.

HCL will use proceeds to pursue R&D in Israel and build a pilot plant in the US to be completed in 2010.