Anthony Berardi 🍊

Reimagining the chemicals industry @ Citrimer 🍊 | PhD @UMengineering

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

EVERYTHING COMES FROM PETROLEUM

I made this very non-exhaustive map of the petrochemical industry as it pertains to the production of synthetic materials (polymers, plastics, rubber, resins). Every synthetic material is downstream from petroleum.

Its so hard to imagine our modern physical world without these ubiquitous materials. They're everywhere and they're in everything. Packaging, textiles, coatings, paints, tires, paneling, building materials, consumer goods. The list is practically endless.

But our supply of raw materials is not. Petroleum is a finite resource. When we run out, we won't just be unable to power internal combustion engines; we'll be unable to construct our physical world.

On top of that, legacy synthetic materials pollute our environment, drinking water, and food supply and their production contributes over 2 billion tons of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere every year.

There's been little-to-no new innovation in commercial synthetic polymers in the last 50 years. Polyethylene was first commercialized in 1940. Polystyrene was first commercialized in 1931. It's time to reimagine this process and commercialize new materials from non-petroleum, renewable sources.

This is why I started Citrimer. We're reimagining the production of synthetic materials, starting from their underlying chemistry. We use cheap, readily available feedstocks sourced exclusively from plant- or biomass-derived sources to engineer brand new classes of synthetic materials that perform and cost the same as petroleum-derived incumbents.

Citrimer will become the defining specialty materials company of the 21st century.

#chemtwitter #realtimechem

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

Nothing more infuriating during this glorious tax season than seeing $ disappear from your bank account to the IRS, knowing that $ is going to fund wars you fundamentally oppose.

[Axiomatic Enemy of the State @DeTocqueville14]

Anyone else ever get the feeling that there are group of people who know that the ship is sinking and they are stealing everything that isn't nailed down as they load up the life rafts for themselves??

[Blueprintsmb @blueprintsmb22]

Call the cops.🚨🚨🚨🚨

[Battle Beagle @HarmlessYardDog]

Which one of you bozos thought it was a good idea to build the entire world economy off just in time supply chains from the most unstable regions on the planet?

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

I've been quietly building a green chemicals company for the last year - laser focused on a class of specialty polymers called "unsaturated polyesters" - key raw materials used to manufacture fiberglass/carbon fiber composites for auto, marine, aero, and other heavy industry.

We make our polymers from domestic plant-based feedstocks, not petroleum, at a discount compared to petrochemical incumbents. Unheard of in green chemicals.

None of the geniuses in my local Midwest VC "ecosystem" want to touch us because they love throwing money at low-impact projects with "traction". And coastal VCs all got burned by biomanufacturing startups trying to teach bacteria how to make chemicals, which is really difficult and expensive.

Attitudes in this space are about to drastically change because people are waking up to just how fragile the petrochemical supply chain is. Chemical companies all over the world are shutting down production because they can't get the petroleum feedstocks from the Middle East that they need to manufacture their products.

This spells disaster for all the downstream industries that touch the petrochemical supply chain. >90% of all goods are manufactured with petrochemicals. Its not just about fuel/energy - this is about our ability to manufacture just about every physical good in our modern society.

You like buying cars? Car parts are made from petrochemicals. You like buying clothes? Textiles are made from petrochemicals. You like buying cheap shit on Amazon? It's all made from petrochemicals.

It's time to stop treating the chemical industry as a bloated dinosaur monolith that we can't touch with venture financing. There are creative ways to make chemical products from abundant, cheap, domestic feedstocks that come from plants instead of petroleum - that don't require buyers to swallow a green premium - all while using the existing reactor infrastructure the petrochemical companies use. This is exactly what we're doing at Citrimer. If you care about national security, the US industrial base, making money, and want to do some good for the environment, hit me up.

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@alppouch @ElishaDLong

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@AJA_Cortes $6 trillion market with an insane amount of room for innovation. I’m working on this too. Would love to connect.

[AJAC @AJA_Cortes]

The most important thing Ive written in a long time, maybe ever

[Malika 🧬 @malikules]

VCs listening to you pitch how bacteria can produce chemicals at fossil fuel price parity

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

Largest number of Zyn users per capita anywhere in the world @reindsummit

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@zanehengsperger I’ll be there. Would love to link up with you there or some other time in the Detroit area. I’m based in Michigan

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@reindsummit @USTradeRep @honeywell @PalmerLuckey @anduriltech @ssankar Stacked

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@zanehengsperger Upcoming job posting for the factory about to be like

Benefits:
- Unlimited PTO
- Medical and dental insurance
- Freedom to absolutely rip heaters on shop floor

[Ethan Loosbrock @ELoosbrock]

Same goes for better arrangements of atoms (MatSci) or ways of arranging atoms (ChemE)

[Ben Reinhardt @Ben_Reinhardt]

In the limit, you can boil abundance down to three principles:
1. Get the price of things as close to the cost of their raw materials as possible
2. Drive the cost of those raw materials down to the energy to extract them
3. Create new things that can do different stuff

Repeat!

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

Midwest VCs when they insist on 42% ownership and a 3x liq pref at Seed

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

Convincing yourself that you need to be on https://t.co/zqTX0AcTre to keep up with “the discourse” and “build in public” is 100% cope

Reality is we all have a crippling meme addiction

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@jordihays “Hey I know you’re a pre-product, pre-revenue, pre-customer, pre-seed hard tech company, but can you send me financial projections for the next decade and information on your exit strategy and potential acquirers?”

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@aphysicist Huge. Running it back in MI is a great choice.

[Anthony Berardi 🍊 @aberardi_]

@EricJorgenson @aphysicist True