Out of the laboratory, into the marketplace

It has been a wild ride for biofuels-focused Solix BioSystems Inc. But since bubbling up from the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory at Colorado State University, Solix has kept moving forward despite the gyrations of the biofuels industry.

Solix started out with two basic product lines: It designed systems called photobioreactors — large pools, in a sense — for growing algae on an industrial scale, and it produced an algae-based biomass that can be converted into a wide range of biofuels for vehicles and airplanes.

As promising as that sounds, it’s not easy to build a profitable business around either or both…