🔒Specialty chemical firm P2 Science developing green cosmetics, fragrances

Ah, New Haven, famed for Yale University and bioscience startups.

But wait. Could New Haven also become a center of the cosmetics and fragrance industries, potentially an American Paris?

Even the man leading business development at P2 Science thinks that’s a stretch, but the elements are indisputably coming into place.

P2 is a specialty chemical firm with its roots in Yale’s Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering. Paul Anastas, who heads the center, and Patrick Foley, among the green chemistry center’s first graduates, are the co-founders.

The name — P2 — reflects their shared first initials.

Their shared vision is a line of green, sustainable chemicals that can match the performance of high-end cosmetics, fragrances and polymer coatings that today are manufactured using petrochemicals in a toxic, potentially explosive batch process known as ozonolysis.

Scientists at P2, working with Belgian engineering firm Desmet Bellestra, have patented a continuous-flow technology in which the reaction time is measured in minutes rather than hours and risks are sharply reduced.

In 2018, P2 opened a new manufacturing plant in Naugatuck, where it is using vegetable oil to create the building blocks of cosmetics and fragrances as well as a variety of industrial polymers.

Its specialty acids have applications that run from skin care to crop care. Alongside its cosmetics aspirations, P2 has a deal with food-processing giant Archer-Midland-Daniels.

Early investors included Elm Street Ventures and Connecticut Innovations. But a handful of venture firms have been joined by industry heavyweights BASF and Chanel in later rounds of funding.

Ryan Cheng, P2’s vice president of business development, points to the firm’s Citropol line of renewable liquid polymers derived from forest products. While not consumer-facing products, Citropol is a collection of ingredients that are alternatives to silicones now used in beauty products. The Naugatuck plant is turning out large volumes that are being marketed to companies making the consumer products.

Cheng cites the global interest in green, sustainable products as the wind at P2’s back. Consumers want green products, he said, and there’s a chance the European Union may ban the use of silicones in cosmetics and other products.

Cheng declined to discuss the firm’s revenue but said P2 and its 26 employees are focused on expanding product lines. He said the idea of P2 going into production with its own line of beauty products is a long shot — it would require further plant expansion. However the option “remains on the table.”

P2 is looking for New Haven area nonprofits to join the firm’s One Tree Planted initiative. The concept is straight forward: For every kilogram of Citropol product sold, P2 will sponsor the planting of a tree. The expectation is that the program will plant hundreds of thousands of trees worldwide and P2 is looking for partners in reforesting local areas.

In announcing the program in Aug. 2020, Cheng said, “When customers use Citropol, they are making high-performing end products that adhere to clean beauty standards, and now they are directly supporting global reforestation.”

One Tree Planted estimates that a single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over 40 years after it is planted.