Coskata’s facility in Warrenville, Illinois, houses several development labs where Coskata scientists and engineers work to develop Coskata’s technologies. The site contains several analytical laboratories and fermentation facilities, which allow for the characterization and development of Coskata’s proprietary microorganisms and bioreactor designs. At this facility, we convert natural gas into a variety of products.

During Coskata’s early years in this facility, Coskata’s R&D team was successful in advancing its ethanol production strain productivity by 1000X over the wild strain. The company continues to make advancements in its microbiological capabilities for a variety of fuels and chemicals.

In addition to its microbiological labs, Coskata has several specialized development labs:

Horizon Pilot Facility

Coskata’s pilot facility, Horizon, is based at the Coskata global headquarters in Warrenville, Illinois. Using a natural gas reformer as a source of syngas, the Horizon facility allows for long-duration, continuous processing. It is here that Coskata scientists can study the impact of long-duration, steady-state fermentations as well as determine the scale-up of the fermentation process. This information was employed to establish scale-up metrics utilized in the design of Coskata’s first commercial facility.

High Throughput Screening Lab

One of our core competencies at Coskata is identifying and optimizing high-yield, naturally-occurring micro-organisms for the efficient fermentation of syngas. At our headquarters in Warrenville, Illinois, we have developed a complete anaerobic bacteria strain management facility that is capable of advancing native strains through guided mutation and selection. One of the only anaerobic high throughput facilities in the world, our current capacity at this facility allows us to screen over 150,000 new strains per year with faster strain advancements than other methods. During our first year of operations, our scientists were able to improve the overall productivity of our micro-organisms a thousand-fold and minimize the requirements for additional nutrients, such that our current commercial strains require only syngas as an energy source and a very small amount of key micronutrients and minerals. We will continue to optimize our micro-organisms to increase overall yield, lower production costs and allow for the production of additional bio-based chemicals and other end-products.