Concord Blue USA Inc., headquartered in Los Angeles, and LanzaTech, founded in New Zealand, have entered into an agreement to integrate their technologies to demonstrate the production of fuels and chemicals from waste materials.

LanzaTech will install a Concord Blue Reformer at its Freedom Pines facility in Soperton, Ga., that will allow it to convert waste biomass from regional forestry operations into syngas. The syngas will be converted by LanzaTech's gas fermentation process into biofuels and chemicals.

The integration and testing at Freedom Pines will help move the process toward full commercialization of the integrated technologies that both companies have under contract and in development, according to LanzaTech.

"As the U.S. continues to diversify its energy mix and produce more domestic energy, low carbon fuels derived from waste woody biomass and municipal solid waste will play an increasingly important role," says Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. "Our partnership with Concord Blue will enable us to extend our technology to these important resources."

Concord Blue has developed a closed-loop, nonincineration process that recycles nearly any form of waste, including landfill waste and sewage sludge, into energy at virtually any scale, the company says.

LanzaTech's technology has earned a global sustainability certification from the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials at a precommercial facility in China.

"This partnership and demonstration facility lays the foundation for the development of larger projects we have been awarded, like the Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI)," says Charlie Thannhaeuser, chairman and CEO of Concord Blue. "This represents a critical step towards achieving our company's objective to produce drop-in fuels from waste resources and bolster foreign oil independence by producing sustainable non fossil-based fuels."