NCGA Honors Three Winners Driving Innovation in Consider Corn Challenge V

At today's Bio Innovations Midwest Event in Omaha, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced the winners of the Consider Corn Challenge V and the $300,000 prize pool. Three winners were chosen, each with a unique way to improve a product or process using corn to produce biobased materials.

"The Consider Corn Challenge fosters innovative collaborations between corn farmers and both the public and private sectors, which paves the way for new products, chemicals, and applications. This year's winners have continued to demonstrate corn's adaptability," said Director of Research & Market Development Sarah McKay. "Corn's versatile applications as an industrial feedstock can be witnessed in the diverse approaches and applications of each of the three winners. This contest continues to highlight the fact that U.S. corn is an extremely flexible feedstock suited for biobased products and crucial to advancing the biobased economy."

The three winners for the Consider Corn Challenge V are Aerterra, Terragia, and Arizona State University.

Aerterra is redefining indoor air quality with the first bio-based, renewable air filters made from U.S.-grown corn. Engineered to replace petroleum-based filters, Aerterra delivers high-performance filtration with a fraction of the environmental impact. By turning a traditionally disposable product into a sustainable solution, Aerterra helps homes, businesses, and communities improve air quality while reducing their carbon footprint.

Aerterra's mission-Clean Air, Healthy Planet-guides every step. Aerterra is more than a product company; it is a bridge to the bioeconomy, proving how renewable feedstocks can replace fossil-based materials in everyday life. This innovation opens a new market for air filtration, aligning consumer health, climate action, and economic growth.

Through a subscription model built for "conscientious convenience," Aerterra ensures customers never compromise between performance, sustainability, and ease. Positioned at the intersection of climate innovation and consumer health, Aerterra demonstrates the power of corn-based materials to reduce waste and accelerate a circular economy-showcasing how the products we rely on every day can help build a healthier planet.

Terragia is developing technology to enable cost-effective biological conversion of cellulosic biomass to fuels and products - with great potential for value creation for corn farmers across the United States. The first application of this technology is fermentation of stillage from corn ethanol production. For ethanol producers, that means potential for a 10% increase in ethanol production, higher-protein DDGS, more corn oil, and $80 million in added annual revenue for a 105 MGY plant.

Building on groundbreaking research from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College and with the support of the DOE's Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI), USDA, NSF, and private investors, Terragia uses distinctive biotechnological capability to engineer thermophilic anaerobic bacteria for one-step consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) of cellulosic biomass. Terragia's thermophilic anaerobes excel at breaking down biomass, unlocking the energy in feedstocks such as corn fiber and corn stover-without costly pretreatment or added enzymes.

Terragia's near-term business model is to partner with producers and the agricultural community to co-locate projects at existing facilities.

Arizona State University's winning technology is a corrosion mitigation for crude oil pipelines that employs corn-derived inhibitors. About 25% of all crude oil pipeline accidents reported in the year 2024 were due to corrosion, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration statistics. The United States has a quarter-million-mile-long crude oil pipeline network and produced 13.5 million barrels of crude oil per day in May of 2025. ASU's technology is a new corn-derived corrosion inhibitor suitable for use in crude oil pipelines to mitigate internal corrosion. Based on current results, the product adsorbs on the internal surface of the pipeline, forming a film that blocks access to corrosive substances in the pipeline. The product is non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and, like other commercial products, it should be added to the crude oil in low dosages at regular intervals to be effective. Building on the preliminary results and past experiences with developing corn-derived products, ASU will perform a range of electrochemical tests on the new Corn-derived inhibitor to quantify its performance and elucidate its working mechanism. This product has the potential to create a new market for corn-producing farmers and contribute positively to the U.S. pipeline infrastructure resilience.

"Finding new uses for corn and additional market demand is a key priority for NCGA," said Kansas farmer and Research and New Uses Action Team Chair Chad Epler. "The Consider Corn Challenge provides a unique opportunity to harness the potential of corn as a versatile, sustainable feedstock. It not only showcases the ingenuity of participants but also fosters vital collaborations between industry and corn producers, paving the way for innovative, market-driven solutions."

The total prize pool for the fourth iteration of the contest was U.S. $300,000. Each of the three winners received $100,000 to utilize to get their technologies and products closer to commercialization. Learn more by visiting ncga.com/ConsiderCorn.