Renmatix: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visits King of Prussia bio-based chemicals company to announce $7M in biofuels research funding

This very-serious-looking machine is Renmatix’s new Bioflex Conversion Unit, which will convert local feedstocks to industrial-sugars. Photos courtesy of Renmatix.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited King of Prussia bio-based chemical company Renmatix last Friday to celebrate the company’s newest production unit and to announce a $7 million grant toward biofuels research being conducted at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, according to a Renmatix spokesman and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Renmatix opened an R&D facility last fall, and the company’s new Bioflex Conversion Unit, which converts local feedstocks to industrial-sugars, was the last piece of the puzzle, a spokesman said. The Kleiner Perkins-backed company has also doubled its staff to 50 since it opened its King of Prussia headquarters in early 2012.  Renmatix was previously based in Georgia.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (second from right) and Renmatix CEO Michael Hamilton (far right) during Vilsack’s visit.

As for the research grant, it’s part of a $25 million grant that is funding projects in Kansas, Utah and Ohio, the Inquirer reported.

More from the Inquirer:

The goal of the research in Wyndmoor, where about 75 people work, is to develop systems for turning forest residues, animal manure, switchgrass, and other perennial grasses into biofuels and specialty chemicals on the farm.

Read the whole article here.

Updated 3:09 p.m. 1/17/13: Renmatix is not a “biofuel manufacturer,” as we previously reported. It is a bio-based chemical company.