Alberta-based Quantiam Technologies is one of five companies worldwide highlighted in new research by Vancouver-based cleantech research company Kachan & Co.

Kachan has published an abstract of a new private study that found 24 companies worldwide at the forefront of the science of converting methane into the high value chemical ethylene, used in the production of plastics and other important industrial projects. For decades, chemical engineers have been pursuing cost effective ways to make this key industrial compound from other things. Now, a handful of companies think they’re honing in on ways to make ethylene from the methane in natural gas with commercially viable processes… something that’s been tried for decades by the oil majors for decades but has been elusive so far.