Proterro said it has reached its Q1 sugar-production pilot milestones in four months of continuous operation at its pilot plant in Orlando, Florida, and reported that it has consistently saw no contamination effect on productivity.

In February, Proterro announced that the USPTO had issued a notice of allowance for a patent protecting the novel photobioreactor, which cultivates Proterro’s patented, sugar-producing cyanobacteria, the other key part of the company’s sugar-making process.

Learnings from the pilot are leading to improvements in the next-generation photobioreactor being developed with ILC Dover (ILC), the NASA spacesuit maker that specializes in advanced fabrics and engineered inflatables. An updated iteration of the photobioreactor is due for installation later this quarter.

Proterro said it will ultimately beat traditional sugar-feedstock cost but are still not ready for commercial scale.