Kraken Kinetics launches Odin Energetics with Solugen. By Eric G - Published October 29, 2026 Kraken Kinetics is proud to publicly launch Odin Energetics, its new joint venture with Solugen Aerospace & Defense. Odin was created to rethink how America produces and delivers advanced energetics, the explosives and propellants at the core of modern munitions. The challenge is straightforward: demand for munitions is increasing, while the industrial base supporting them [...] Related Topics:

Prompting profit and sustainability. BUILDING UP: Solugen, a biobased chemical maker, is working with Kurita on a biodegradable option for deposit and corrosion control chemistries. Pictured is a smaller version of its unique bioforge setup. PHOTO: SOLUGEN May 5, 2026 BY Luke Geiver Water management practices throughout the industry remain fluid - in a positive way. New solutions enter the market every year, evolving continuously thanks to the work of service providers who unveil new strategies to optimize functions around the ever-present molecule crucial to a profitable and sustainable biorefinery. Some focus on new chemistries, while others are helping deploy digital analytics and real-time solutions, including 24/7 monitoring, AI, or new non-hazardous chemicals. Most have established protocols for managing a plant's long-term water usage and treatment, but all are dedicated to maximizing the efficiency and efficacy of the overall approach to water. The Nalco Approach Nalco Water, an Ecolab Company, one of the leading water-focused service providers in the ethanol industry, has water-based solutions for nearly every part of an ethanol plant: distillation, cooling water, heat exchangers, fermentation, boiler systems, pretreatment, evaporators, corn oil separation, thin stillage and even ethanol storage. The only areas of a modern ethanol plant Nalco does not serve are liquefaction, milling and delivery. For cooling water towers, Nalco offers a system to detect variability and determine the appropriate action. The trademarked 3D Trasar tech reduces energy through scale and fouling prevention. With 24/7 monitoring and customized applications, the technology provides water savings with increased cycles of concentration, according to the company. Around the globe, more than 50,000 industrial water users rely on 3D Trasar. Nalco says the system has saved more than 215 billion gallons. Mast train heat exchanger cleaning programs from Nalco help eliminate acid cleaning, improve heat transfer and aid with infection control. The cleaning program can also help a plant become compliant with the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act. To help with cleaning challenges that occur during fermentation, Nalco has the Trimenta alternative pH CIP program, designed to decrease glycerol, sodium and process organics, as well as reduce unintended foam overs. According to the company, the process reduces operating pressures, increases beer feed rates, reduces downtime, eliminates hydroblasting and improves safety. Nalco's 3D Trasar technology comes with a variation for boilers. Through real-time monitoring combined with FDA-approved oxygen scavengers, internal treatment and condensate corrosion inhibitors, the system can help save water and energy costs, according to the company. At the pretreatment stage, Nalco's trademarked PermaCare is built to solve normal reverse osmosis problems for less cost than an ion exchange system. For evaporators, the company has its own proprietary CIP program in partnership with Aquatech International that can actually enable the expansion of an evaporator's capacity. Nalco also has its own thin stillage clarification process. For the actual corn oil separation, the Nalco program effectively cleans tricanters and disc stacks, which reduces system vibration and cleaning time requirements. According to the company, the system increases yield and quality. And, for ethanol storage, the EC5624A Plus ethanol corrosion inhibitor is well-suited for cold weather handling and eliminates the need for heated storage. Veolia Systems Veolia, another global water service provider well-established in the ethanol sector, also has a robust service offering including a system to measure, automate and manage the optimization of cooling water systems. The strategy combines three functions into one: direct monitoring of critical water chemistries; better instrumentation for better offline testing; and a data management system that always looks for ways to lower costs. For distillation, Veolia's go-to product is the trademarked ScaleTrol, a scale inhibitor that the company says creates fewer interruptions for the plant. In fermentation, Biomate and FoodPro FBC are the main microbiological control agents. In one case study, Veolia reports that with the use of its defoamers and dispersants program, an ethanol plant was able to reduce its process costs by roughly $260,000. To help with transport, the trademarked EndCor is another corrosion inhibitor. In total, Veolia offers biocides, coagulators, flocculants, anti-scaling agents, offline cleaners, viscosity-reducing agents, defoamers and ethanol neutralizers. Veolia's MemChem line helps with the performance of pure water equipment including cartridge and multimedia filters, carbon, micro- and ultra-filtration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. Carbon Collaboration Through a collaboration with Kurita Group, Solugen, a biobased chemical maker, will help provide carbon-negative biobased substitutes for the common phosphorus and petroleum-based products used in industrial water treatment. Kurita and Solugen have already developed the Tower NG series of products for cooling towers, using Solugen's proprietary biodegradable corrosion inhibitor, which can replace most of the traditional water treatment chemicals, according to Kurita. "By leveraging innovative biobased solutions, the Tower NG series eliminates the dependence on traditional organophosphates while providing equivalent or better results for deposit and corrosion control," Kurita says. Mike Mowbray, senior vice president of marketing and technology for Kurita America, says the work with Solugen falls in line with its efforts to challenge traditional water treatment programs. "This collaboration will significantly enhance our existing Creating Shared Value business that helps customers achieve sustainability goals," according to Mowbray. Kurita's CSV business is one of its fastest growing. The business focuses on products, tech and business models that save water or reduce CO2 emissions. Standard Equipment Packages H2O Innovation, a supplier of water treatment equipment, chemicals, parts and services, has also been recognized for its work to help ethanol plants turn USP-grade ethanol into hand sanitizer. To date, H2O Innovation has installed systems at more than 80 ethanol plants. The company relies on five main technologies: reverse osmosis and nanofiltration; ultrafiltration and microfiltration; ceramic membrane systems; multimedia or green sand filters; and the trademarked SILO technology, a simplified approach to membrane bioreactor treatments. H2O Innovation provided a reverse osmosis and green sand filter equipment package for Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy. At another Iowa ethanol plant, the equipment package included a ceramic membrane system and ultrafiltration. At Lincolnway Energy, H2O Innovation provided multimedia and greensand filters. Like most other service providers, H2O Innovation offers a remote monitoring and early detection system - Intelogx Connect. With its most robust package, Intelogx Plus+, H2O Innovation engineers will review and analyze plant data on a routine basis and provide custom reports on membrane health. Other Options Columbia Water Technology, a Washington-based provider, serves customers in the U.S. ethanol market along with other sectors around the world. The company focuses primarily on pretreatment equipment, specifically the boiler and cooling chemistry. All products provided by the company are manufactured in Vancouver, Washington. The company performs special water studies for plants looking for facility efficiency improvements. Valley Process Technologies LLC considers itself a next-gen CIP solutions provider. The North Dakota company was formed after research and development in biofuels and sugar industries led to a proprietary, non-hazardous chemistry used to attack scaling at the molecular level. VPT offers defoamers, scale control, deposit control and antibiotics specifically to the biofuels industry, along with several other non-hazardous CIP chemistries such as caustic or acid replacements that can also be used in sugar processing. VPT's defoamers are effective for enzyme and yeast compatible formulations, low treatment rates and most fermentation conditions. The company's scale control options help keep heat transfer at peak efficiency by inhibiting calcium, magnesium or struvite scale on heat exchanger surfaces, evaporator tubes or beer columns. If a plant needs a custom formulation of any kind, the company will collaborate to help overcome scaling issues. Plant trial formulations are also available. VPT also offers chemical dosing and injection systems available on skid. They include high-precision metering pumps, dosing control, chemical-resistant materials, inline static mixers and multi-point injection optionality. According to VPT, the company implemented its own series of chemicals through an automated dosing system at a 100 MMgy plant that was losing 12 hours of production weekly to prolonged fermenter CIP cycles because of standard caustics and oxidizers. The result was a reduction in CIP time by 20%, the oxidizer use was eliminated entirely and the plant saw an annual savings of $180,000.