From farm products to T-shirts using Virent’s technology

Would you wear a shirt made from beet sugar?

Virent is showing off what it calls “the world’s first 100 percent plant-based polyester shirts,” made from a chemical produced by the Madison biofuels company that’s derived from Minnesota sugar beets.

A key ingredient in polyester — one of the world’s most popular synthetic fibers — is paraxylene, and it’s been made exclusively from crude oil.

Virent’s BioFormPX paraxylene has no petroleum in it; it is derived solely from plants.

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