Atacama Biomaterials is a startup that combines architecture, machine learning, and chemical engineering to create green materials with multiple applications. Passionate about sustainable innovation, its co-founder Paloma González-Rojas SM '15, Ph.D. '21 highlights here how MIT has supported the project through several of its business initiatives and reflects on the role of design in building a holistic vision for an expanding business.
Q: What role do you see your startup playing in the sustainable materials space?
TO: Atacama Biomaterials is a venture dedicated to the advancement of sustainable materials through cutting-edge technology. With my co-founder José Tomás Domínguez, we have been working on the development of our technology since 2019. We initially started the company in 2020 with another name and received Sandbox funds next year. In 2021, we go through The motorof the accelerator, Blueprint, and we change our name to Atacama Biomaterials in 2022 during the MITdesignX program.
This technology that we have developed allows us to create our own library of data and materials using artificial intelligence and machine learning, and serves as a platform applicable to various industries horizontally: biofuels, biological medicines and even mining. Vertically, we produce economical, regionally sourced and environmentally friendly bio-based polymers and packaging, i.e. naturally compostable plastics as a flagship product, along with ai products.
Q: What motivated you to venture into biomaterials and found Atacama?
TO: I am from Chile, a country with a beautiful and rich geography and nature where we can see all the problems derived from industry, waste management and pollution. We call our company Atacama Biomaterials because the Atacama Desert in Chile, one of the best places to see the stars in the world, is becoming a plastic dump, like many other places on Earth. I care deeply about sustainability and have an emotional connection to stopping these problems. Considering that manufacturing accounts for 29 percent of global carbon emissions, it is clear that sustainability has a role in how we define technology and entrepreneurship, as well as a socioeconomic dimension.
When I first came to MIT, it was to develop software in the Department of Architecture. Design and Computing Group, with MIT professors Svafa Gronfeldt as co-advisor and Regina Barzilay as a committee member. During my PhD, I studied machine learning methods that simulate pedestrian movement to understand how people move in space. At my job, I used a lot of plastics for 3D printing and couldn't stop thinking about sustainability and climate change, so I reached out to materials science and mechanical engineering professors to research biopolymers and bio-based degradable materials. That's how I met my co-founder, as we were both working with MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld. Together, we were part of one of the first teams in the world to 3D print wood fibers, which is difficult (it's slow and expensive) and we quickly moved to sustainable packaging.
Then I won a scholarship MCSC (the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium), which gave me the freedom to explore further, and I eventually obtained a postdoc in chemical engineering from MIT, guided by MIT professor Gregory Rutledge, a polymer physicist. This was unexpected in my professional career. Victorious Nucleate Eco Track 2022 and the MITdesignX Innovation Award in 2022 highlighted Atacama Biomaterials as one of the rising startups in Boston's biotech and climate tech scene.
Q: What is your process for developing new biomaterials?
TO: My doctoral research, along with my experience in materials development and molecular dynamics, made me realize that the principles I studied to simulate the movement of a pedestrian could also be applied to molecular engineering. This connection may seem unconventional, but for me it was a natural progression. Early in my career, I developed an intuition for materials, understanding their mechanics and physics.
Using my experience and skills, and leveraging machine learning as a technological leap, I applied a similar conceptual framework to simulate the trajectories of molecules and find potential applications in biomaterials. Making that parallel and that change was incredible. It allowed me to optimize cutting-edge molecular dynamics software to run twice as fast as more traditional technologies through my algorithm presented in the International Machine Learning Conference this year. This is very important, because this type of simulation usually takes a week, so reducing it to two days has important implications for scientists and industry, in materials science, chemical engineering, computer science and related fields. This work greatly influenced the founding of Atacama Biomaterials, where we developed our own ai to implement our materials. In an effort to mitigate the environmental impact of manufacturing, Atacama is targeting a 16.7 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions associated with the manufacturing process of its polymers, through the use of renewable energy.
Another thing is that I trained as an architect in Chile and my career had a design component. I think design allows me to understand problems at a very high level and how things are interconnected. It contributed to developing a holistic vision of Atacama, because it allowed me to jump from one technology or discipline to another and understand broader applications at a conceptual level. Our design approach also meant that sustainability became the center of our work from the beginning, and not just an added bonus or cost.
Q: What was the role of MITdesignX in the development of Atacama?
TO: I have known Svafa Grönfeldt, Faculty Director of MITdesignX, for almost six years. She was the co-supervisor of my PhD and we had a mentor-mentee relationship. I admire the fact that she created a space for people interested in business and entrepreneurship to grow within the Department of Architecture. She and CEO Gilad Rosenzweig gave us fantastic advice and we received significant support from our mentors. For example, Daniel Tsai helped us with intellectual property, including a crucial patent for Atacama. And we are still in contact with the rest of the cohort. I really like this “design your company” approach, which I think is quite unique, because it gives us the opportunity to reflect on who we want to be as designers, technologists and entrepreneurs. Studying user feedback also allowed us to understand the broad applicability of our research and align our vision with market demands, ultimately making Atacama a company with a holistic perspective on the development of sustainable materials.
Q: How is Atacama approaching scaling and what are the immediate next steps for the company?
TO: When I think about achieving our vision, I am truly inspired by my 3-year-old daughter. I want him to experience a world with trees and wildlife when he is 100 years old, and I hope the Atacama contributes to that future.
Returning to the designer's perspective, we design the entire process comprehensively, from raw materials to materials development, incorporating artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. Having demonstrated that there is demand for the materials we are developing and having tested our products, manufacturing processes and technology in critical environments, we are now ready to scale. Our technological readiness level is comparable to that used by NASA (level 4).
We have proof of concept: a biodegradable and recyclable packaging material that is cost-effective and energy efficient as an enabler of clean energy in large-scale manufacturing. We have received seed funding and are scaling sustainably by leveraging resources available around the world, such as reusing machinery from the paper industry. As presented at the recent MIT Industrial Liaison Sustainability Conference and the STEX Program, unlike our competitors, we have cost parity with current packaging materials as well as low-energy processes. And we also demonstrated demand for our products, which was an important milestone. Our next steps involve strategically expanding our manufacturing capabilities and research facilities and we are currently evaluating building a factory in Chile and establishing an R&D laboratory plus manufacturing facility in the US.
