April 13, 2021
It’s a startup created, literally, from ashes. From this waste, the Brazilian company Marina Technology is creating new materials that seek to make the chemical market sustainable, in addition to solving an ecological threat and creating jobs.
The states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, are responsible for 75% of the country’s rice production, representing 12 million tons per year. The crop brings with it an environmental problem: 2.2 million tons of husks remain as a residue, the burning of which leaves 200 thousand tons of ashes and the subsequent pollution of the air and soil. Turning this waste into an opportunity to innovate has been the work of Diana Finkler, a pioneering industrial chemist in the development of new materials for the chemical industry.
Diana remembers the moment when she had the inspiration that would define her career. It happened during an industrial chemistry class in college, in 2010, while the professor was discussing different chemical materials and their applications. Among them, she mentioned silica - a highly valued chemical in various industries, which can be extracted from the earth's crust, but also from ashes from rice husks.
“Right then I thought, what if we use silica and derivatives from the ashes as raw material to make more sustainable tires? Tires with better waterproofing, a longer useful life, and therefore less polluting,” Diana recalls. That promising line of research would become the subject of her thesis and the opportunity to transfer newfound knowledge to industry and innovation.
In 2011, Diana presented her research for the Santander Universities Awards in Brazil and was the winner in the category “Entrepreneurship in Industry”. The Award granted her seed capital and access to an entrepreneurship course at Babson College, to continue her research and open a company that would allow her to commercialize technological developments. That same year she created Marina Technology and patented a new nano-product derived from silica.
The novel compound that she had first imagined in the classroom can be used in the manufacture of multiple products, from rubber seals to prevent fuel leakage, production of water purifying filters, the manufacture of inks and adhesives, or products for civil construction and the agricultural and food machinery industry. Diana's invention also fulfilled her original idea of producing "green" tires, with higher performance and durability, whose production comes from a renewable source: ashes from rice husks.
“Today there are vehicles rolling in Brazil with this technology,” says Diana.
Over time, innovation also brought with it the solution to a bigger problem. Through a technological license between Marina Technology and the German-owned company Oryzasil, the latter inaugurated in 2019 the first silica factory from renewable sources in the town of Itaqui, in Rio Grande do Sul. In that state, affected by the ecological impact of the rice production, the goal is now to process 140 thousand tons of husks annually and obtain 28 tons of ash for transformation into silica and derivatives with a high added value.
Together with Oryzasil's investment, the project was possible thanks to a loan of 13 million reais (more than 2 million dollars) and non-reimbursable resources for 4.2 million reais (more than 600 thousand dollars) from the Funding Authority for Studies and Projects (Finep, in Portuguese), Brazil's national innovation agency, within the framework of a financing program with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
For Diana, the success of her venture is not measured only by the new knowledge and technologies generated, but by the social, economic and environmental impact. "The socioeconomic impact of an industrial plant like Oryzasil’s in a low-income city is very high, in terms of employment and opportunities for people, in addition to the positive environmental effect of reusing the ashes," she says.
THE PATH TO SCIENTIFIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The entrepreneur emphasizes that two key aspects in her development have been access to mentoring and the possibility of looking beyond her own borders. On the one hand, having participated in the Endeavor Brazil Promises Program helped her not only to interact with specialist mentors in different fields, but also to become a mentor herself. On the other, being part of the internationalization program of the National Association of Entities Promoting Innovative Enterprises (Anprotec, in Portuguese), allowed him to visit pneumatic companies in the United States and have access to leading companies in the field.
The support of the State has also proven essential: “Throughout this time we have participated in the programs to promote entrepreneurship from the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae, in Portuguese) and financing for disruptive innovation granted by Finep. All of this supported the consolidation of the company and allowed us to achieve more contracts to develop technology,” she says.
The support received from Finep has been critical in driving the growth of Marina Tecnología. She was selected for the Finep Startup program in 2018, which invested 18.5 million reais (almost 3 million dollars) into 19 startups..
My goal is to continue developing new solutions to the problems of society and industry
“The participation of the State, through its programs and public policies, is crucial in this type of science-based undertaking, where the technological risk is very high. In other words, they are projects with uncertain results, so public financing reduces this risk and makes companies, universities and other partners join in,” says Vanderleia Radaelli, a leading specialist in competitiveness, technology and innovation at the IDB.
Furthermore, in 2017, Finep was also the source of the grant for innovation in the chemical industry that allowed Marina Technology
to develop a specific line of silica derivatives, in conjunction with the company Oryzasil.
“This case illustrates the importance of sustained funding from Finep, which was essential for an enterprising scientist to carry out a series of investigations, develop unprecedented technologies worldwide, obtain alliances with the industry and innovate in an emerging field such like that of advanced materials,” highlights Luciana Bittencourt, international organizations coordinator at Finep.
Currently, Marina Technology boasts several nano-products obtained from the ashes of the rice husks, a constant expansion which has led this line of products to earn the name of “Roz Family”, a progeny that could continue to grow in the future. These are new materials with applications in various industries such as cement, cellulose, plastics, inks, polymers, petroleum, sanitation and fashion.
Outside of the “Roz Family,” Marina Technology is also a pioneer in technology for the manufacture of perfluoroelastomers, compounds of great elasticity and resistance to high temperatures, with applications mainly in the oil and gas industries. It is a development for the manufacturer Serall. Among the companies that already using the product is Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company. For the NTC Plásticos company, and with the support of Finep, a new compound for plastic injection with carbon fiber is also being developed, a material of lower weight and high resistance that can replace metallic products.
Marina Technology has been growing for a decade, always retaining its will to innovate.
"My goal is to continue developing new solutions to the problems of society and industry," says Diana. For her, the challenges of the present are not an impediment, but an incentive for others to follow the same path that led her to found Marina Technology. “I believe that the pandemic has spurred the culture of entrepreneurship among scientists. And my vision is that every researcher is a potential entrepreneur”.
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Nicolás Cañete
