Eric Hakmiller is a “what if” thinker. Even after 37 years in agricultural processing, with 18 of those years in the ethanol business, he stepped back and looked at the industry and the processes holistically. He found himself asking that question. “What if we were going to design the process from scratch? We wouldn't do it the way that we did before. We would do something new; we would do it better.”
The landscape for ethanol was changing rapidly and becoming more valuable as a source for renewable energy. His timing was good. As the country moves towards a more sustainable economy, interest in renewable diesel has been growing as a valuable commodity.
The existing process extracted a little less than half of the available oil. Eric developed and patented a process related to corn oil extraction methods in ethanol production, which would yield significantly more ethanol, equating to about $2.3 billion in additional value.
Eric took his idea and technology to BioGenerator, an arm of BioSTL that invests in promising companies and entrepreneurs. Arch Grain Technologies was launched in December 2023. The genesis of the idea was Eric’s, but he will be the first to credit his team, including Kari Miller and Matt Helms at BioGenerator, for bringing it to life. “BioGenerator set me up with some of the basic blocking and tackling at the entrepreneurial process to get us to where we are. It would have just stayed a good idea without their help.”
Arch Grain Technologies has filed preliminary patents and started working on R&D at Iowa State to research the process that Eric laid out. The next stage will go to engineering and from engineering to the pre-commercial stage, by the end of this year.
Kari and her team are tasked with doing due diligence and proof of concept. Can the idea be developed and eventually commercialized? Will this technology be used and is there a market for it? Does the entrepreneur have the drive to put this together?
“You can have fantastic technology, but if you don't have a team or somebody to really drive it and develop it, you won't have anything at the end of the day,” Kari says. “Eric has this vision and he knows what he was doing. He has the relationships in the industry to make it happen.”
The biggest benefit of Eric’s technology is its potential impact on the environment. Aviation fuel today is responsible for 3% of global greenhouse gases. “What if more of the corn oil can be extracted as aviation fuel?
He answers his own question. “What now ends up as animal feed can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in aviation. It is a higher use for humanity.”
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