Zhixuan WANG

Biography :

Dr. Zhixuan Wang is the CEO and Founder of Algreen. She achieved her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London and delivered +5 first-author scientific publications on biomaterial innovation. She has +10 years of biomass research experience and +5 years of fermentation and separation process simulation and optimization experience. She founded Algreen in 2020 after winning first place in an Imperial College London startup competition, We Innovate. She is also the 2021 National Geographic Explorer (US) and the 2021/22 Enterprise Fellow (Royal Academy of Engineering, UK). She leads multiple Innovate UK projects and has successfully accomplished three of them. She filed Algreen's first patent on biobased polyurethane and oversees Algreen's technical development, company management and future scaling-up. She is passionate about green chemistry and biomaterials and would be keen to lead Algreen to commit to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

About Algreen :

Algreen provides the most sustainable solutions to petrol-based polyurethanes. Polyurethanes represent 8% of world plastics, placing them as the 6th most used polymer in the world. They are widely used in automotive, cosmetic, packaging, and fashion industries for making automotive coating/seat/sealants/tires, cosmetic microplastics, packaging films/coating/adhesives, fashion sequins, shoes/bra foam, shoes/underwear adhesives and waterproof coating.
Conventional polyurethanes come from carbon intensive petrol refineries and end their life in landfill, releasing microplastics or are incinerated generating significant Greenhouse Gases. Besides the negative environmental impacts, people manufacturing petrol-based polyurethane also have the health threat of occupational asthma.
Algreen invents fully biobased and biodegradable polyurethanes designed to eliminate petrol-based polyurethanes. We ensure the safety of our polyurethane production by using biomass to replace petrol chemicals. Meanwhile, the global polyurethane market will be 29.2 million tons (2029). By replacing 1% of petrol-based polyurethane, Algreen eliminates 88bn kgCO2eq annually.