Piedmont Biofuels announced today(February 7, 2012)  that the company has commenced the first commercial scale zero-waste production of biodiesel in the United States using its proprietary approach of enzyme catalysis. Biodiesel is a diesel fuel alternative made from fats and oils, which can be used in diesel engines without modification.

Piedmont has successfully scaled-up an enzyme-based technique to biodiesel production. The traditional biodiesel production method uses chemical catalysts like potassium hydroxide and sulfuric acid. These chemicals form soaps or salts which contaminate both the biodiesel and glycerin phases, producing low-grade co-products.  “With the enzyme process, we eliminate the caustic chemicals which allows biodiesel producers to decrease waste and increase yield, with all types of feedstocks,” says Lyle Estill, President of Piedmont Biofuels.

Piedmont Biofuels has been investigating enzyme catalysis for the biodiesel industry for over four years in efforts to find a successful zero-waste output. In 2009, Piedmont began collaborating with global enzyme producer, Novozymes. Their most recent research and development efforts have been supported by an U.S. Department of Energy, Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grant in addition to the technology commercialization support. from the Clean Energy Alliance (“CEA”) under the Department of Energy Small Business and Clean Energy Alliance Partnership.

This is the first commercial production of its kind in the United States using enzyme catalysts for biodiesel. “ We are very excited to share our success this year at the National Biodiesel Conference,” states Rachel Burton, Research Director of Piedmont Biofuels, who will be delivering details about the production process at the conference in Orlando, Florida from February 5- 8th. “This milestone brings Piedmont Biofuels one step closer to a zero-waste, sustainable biodiesel process.” READ MORE

The new company’s technology and intended products are different, they say, and it is relying on private investment.

Colorado-based Range Fuels had planned to use a catalytic conversion process to make ethanol from wood chips at the Soperton site. When that technology apparently failed to work commercially, Range tried to transfer the plant and a $40 million federal loan guarantee to the newly created LanzaTech Freedom Pines, a subsidiary of New Zealand-based LanzaTech Inc.

However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to transfer the loan, triggering foreclosure on Range Fuels, which ended in LanzaTech Freedom Pines buying the plant on the courthouse steps a month ago for $5.1 million. Company officials have said they hope to add to the existing equipment, hire hundreds of employees and produce a variety of fuels and chemicals.

…Unlike Range Fuels, LanzaTech Freedom Pines has not received any U.S. funding for the Soperton plant. But its parent company has received $560,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $4 million from the Department of Energy and $3 million from the Federal Aviation Administration, all for research and development related to producing jet fuel from waste gas streams or biomass, said Laurel Harmon, vice president for government relations of LanzaTech Inc.

…Robert Rapier, who vets renewable energy technology and writes a prominent industry blog, predicted that LanzaTech will seek government funding for the Soperton project. “I would ban them from government funding until that Range loan is paid off” because of the overlap between the two companies’ investors, he said. “Anyone involved in the Range Fuels thing shouldn’t be getting more tax money. … A lot of people are angry that LanzaTech, with some of the same people, came in and bought (the plant) for pennies on the dollar.”  READ MORE

…Enerkem, which in the first three quarters of 2011 lost $19.1 million while recording $887K in revenues (primarily government grants) becomes the 15th company to file for an IPO in the industrial biotech boom, which began with a successful listing on the NASDAQ by Codexis in 2010.

…Here’s the F-1 registration, in a conveniently downsized 10-minute Digest version – with some commentary along the way as to what is driving value in the Enerkem model, opportunities for the intrepid investor, and some risks which we have translated from the ancient and original SEC into modern English.

From the F-1:  “We develop renewable biofuels and chemicals from waste using our proprietary thermochemical technology platform.

We intend to take advantage of the abundant supply of municipal solid waste, or MSW, which we expect to be paid to use as feedstock, to profitably produce cellulosic ethanol, a second-generation biofuel. We believe that our waste-based biofuels provide one of the most advanced solutions to the growing world demand for renewable sources of energy, while also addressing the challenges associated with waste disposal and greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions.

Our pilot facility in Sherbrooke, Canada has been in operation since 2003 and has a throughput capacity of 4.8 metric tons per day. We have successfully increased, or scaled-up, our throughput capacity tenfold, or 10x, to 48 metric tons per day in our commercial demonstration facility in Westbury, Canada. The Westbury facility has a production capacity of 1.3 million gallons per year, or MMGPY.

Our first standard 10MMGPY commercial facility is currently under construction in Edmonton, Canada. We have developed a modular, copy-exact and scalable approach for equipment production and installation that we anticipate will allow us to have our systems manufactured by third parties as pre-fabricated, replicable modules under fixed-price contracts.

The Technology   From the F-1: “Our proprietary technology platform converts MSW and other heterogeneous waste feedstocks, consisting of mixed textiles, plastics, fibers, wood and various other forms of waste, into a pure, chemical-grade synthesis gas, or syngas. This syngas is then converted into biofuels and chemicals through well-established catalytic reactions. …

The Market    MSW Market. The United States generated 435 million metric tons of MSW in 2009, of which approximately 289 million metric tons, or 66% was landfilled. The company projects that approximately 140 million metric tons is suitable for ethanol production through gasification, yielding up to 14 billion gallons of ethanol annually.  READ MORE and MORE (Bloomberg) and MORE (PR NewsWire)

“This project truly is a public-private partnership with the Green Vision Group of Fargo and Heartland Renewable Energy of Muscatine, Iowa, plus research by North Dakota State University, to develop the energy beet biofuels industry in North Dakota,” says Cole Gustafson, NDSU Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics chair.

The NDSU Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and the Carrington (N.D.) Research Extension Center will continue to provide research for the project.

The $1 million phase II project includes $500,000 in funds from the North Dakota Renewable Energy Council, with approval from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, plus cash-match funds from industry partners Betaseed and Syngenta, and other in-kind contributions.

The project seeks to establish a U.S. Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency multiperil crop insurance program for energy beets; engineer and evaluate new front-end energy beet processing methods; expand regional energy beet research trials; scale up whole energy beet and juice storage technology to enable year-round processing; and inform producers, community developers and the biofuel industry of the emerging opportunity.

“We envision developing at least 12 sustainable ethanol facilities across North Dakota,” says Maynard Helgaas, president of GVG. “Each plant will use energy beets grown within a 20-mile radius and support job creation in rural communities. This grant will help us make significant progress toward that vision and help develop North Dakota’s energy beet biofuel industry.” GVG is in the process of selecting the location for its first processing facility, which is expected to produce 20 million gallons of ethanol per year once complete.

Yield trials

The first phase of the energy beet project focused on research, including yield trials, storage research and commercially testing the use of a coproduct to provide processing heat. Current yield trials are in the North Dakota communities of Dazey/Hannaford, Turtle Lake, Langdon, Minot, Williston, Carrington and Oakes. In 2012, trial plots will be expanded to include Jamestown, Harvey, Litchville and Colgate. The yield trials will continue to be sponsored by Betaseed and Syngenta.

The plot trial research results in phase 1 exceeded expectations, according to Blaine Schatz, Carrington REC director.

“So far, our research shows that energy beets can be grown successfully outside of the Red River Valley in a variety of soil types and conditions,” Schatz says. “The beets actually help growers improve soil health and give them greater farm income.”

“Ethanol produced from energy beets can be sold at a premium,” Gustafson says. “We expect that energy beet ethanol will produce 50 to 60 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-based fuels, which will designate it as an advanced biofuel. We are working to finalize the life-cycle analysis of energy beets through a formal Environmental Protection Agency application. Securing EPA approval of energy beets as an advanced biofuel will mean a significant premium for producers and processors in the sugar-based ethanol market.”

The life-cycle analysis research is funded in part by a separate grant from the North Dakota Agricultural Products Utilization Commission and community donations.

“North Dakota farmers, processors and rural communities should see positive financial returns by growing and processing energy beets for biofuel,” Gustafson says.  READ MORE

It’s a concept which the near-to-commercial Joule Unlimited has been exploring – where they use a modified microorganism that uses sunlight, water, CO2 and nutrients to directly produce renewable fuels and chemicals while bypassing the biomass stage…

Where an acre of, say, sugarcane can yield perhaps as much as 800 gallons of fuel, Joule Unlimited’s system, which looks like a field of solar panels, can generate up to 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre, the company says.

New research is exploring the boundaries between bio and solar in a way that suggests that the two fields may ultimately converge.

You see, what is great about solar is the way that systems can achieve very high photosynthetic efficiencies. As high as 15-20 percent using today’s technology – whereas a plant might convert just 1-2 percent of the solar energy it receives into biomass.

Conversely, what is cool about bio is a lot more. Bio-based systems can utilize other inputs, such as CO2, or water. They make molecules, that can be used in zillions of useful ways, instead of just electrons that drive power systems.

… To produce the energy, the scientists harnessed the power of a key component of photosynthesis known as photosystem-I (PSI) from blue-green algae. This complex was then bioengineered to specifically interact with a semi-conductor so that, when illuminated, the process of photosynthesis produced electricity. More on that technology here.

… Enter the chemolithoautotrophic organisms. Now, try saying that three times real fast. What are those? These are organisms that can obtain energy from an inorganic material, instead of from sunlight.

…BioSolar has developed a technology to produce bio-based materials from renewable plant sources that will reduce the cost of photovoltaic solar panels.  READ MORE

That would boost Treutlen County employment even more than the plant’s former owner, Range Fuels, had promised in exchange for state and federal handouts.

…State and local officials say they plan to meet with LanzaTech leaders in about 10 days to discuss possible job creation commitments. The equipment, which made the plant attractive at auction, was purchased mostly through a $6.25 million Georgia grant that required Range to create more than 60 jobs by 2015.

“We’re looking at tens of jobs in the near term, and hundreds of jobs as we scale to commercial (production),” (Laurel) Harmon (vice president for government relations of LanzaTech Inc.) said. “I hate to be specific about dates and numbers at this time. The intent is certainly to fulfill and exceed the job commitments made formerly.

“The goal is to take this site and achieve what wasn’t achieved before.”

LanzaTech Freedom Pines has retained the handful of employees that were still working for Range Fuels and just rehired a former employee, Harmon said.

“Our commitment is to hire locally wherever possible, and people with experience at the plant are an added bonus for us,” she said.

…Initially LanzaTech will build a demonstration-scale plant with the intent to increase to commercial production of 35 million to 50 million gallons a year, Harmon said.  READ MORE

…The WEI will create a physical hub where scientists from various disciplines can collaborate efficiently. Its lead tenant is the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, one of three bioenergy research centers in the U.S. funded by the U.S. DOE’s Office of Science since 2007. The GLBRC will conduct ongoing research efforts at the WEI to convert lignocellulosic biomass into fuel-grade ethanol and other advanced biofuels and biochemicals. Currently, more than 200 biologists, geologists and engineers associated with the GLBRC are scattered across the UW campus in 15 buildings.  READ MORE

CORE is commercializing a patent-pending variant of ExxonMobil’s methanol-to-gasoline process, trademarked the Melnichuk-Kelly-Stanko Fuel Synthesis Process (MKS Process). The company has modified the process by incorporating advanced, commercially-proven direct gasification modules developed by Energy Products of Idaho, which creates an exothermic reaction for sufficient electricity and steam generation to power the process. CORE has devised a novel route to effectively and efficiently produce biogasoline straight from DME, bypassing the production of methanol entirely, via a robust zeolite-based catalytic reaction without the need for further upgrading to meet retail pump 92-octane requirements.

…Sheppard said that CORE is currently vetting potential sites in central British Columbia for its first biogasoline biorefinery, adding that he anticipates the plant to break ground by early 2014. When operational, the biorefinery will be capable of converting more than 250,000 tons of wood and other cellulosic material into roughly 18 million gallons of biogasoline annually, in addition to coproducing 6.5 million gallons of distilled water, 190,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 10 megawatts of electricity.

According to Sheppard, the company’s first biogasoline facility will be considered a demo plant that utilizes commercially demonstrated equipment and process technology. It will serve as the model for CORE’s long-term commercialization strategy for deploying future biogasoline production facilities through either a build/own/operate model via joint venture partnerships or through licensing arrangements to third parties of the combined technology package.  READ MORE

Although there are several ways to convert plant biomass into a liquid fuel, perhaps the simplest method is to heat it in the absence of oxygen – a process known as pyrolysis. Unfortunately, the resultant bio-oil is somewhat lacking as a fuel: it’s watery and contains too much oxygen. So this bio-oil needs to be upgraded to remove the excess oxygen and water, transforming it into a usable mixture of fuel-grade hydrocarbons.

As this upgrading process involves several different reactions, including hydrogenation, dehydration and hydrolysis reactions, scientists have often employed multiple catalysts. When combined with a stream of hydrogen, these catalysts transform the excess oxygen into water and then separate the water from the hydrocarbon molecules.

…Now, both these teams have gone one better by developing a single catalyst able to do the job. They have even taken the same approach, with both groups’ catalysts using a zeolite known as ZSM-5 impregnated with metal nanoparticles. (Johannes) Lercher (at the Technical University of Munich in Germany) used nickel nanoparticles¹, while (University of Massachusetts-Amherst, George) Huber used gallium nanoparticles².  READ MORE

…Crude tall oil is a by-product of pine-wood pulp production. UPM says that its biodiesel will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport up to 80 percent compared to fossil fuels.

…“The biofuel produced at the plant will be suitable for all cars that use diesel,” says UPM’s Vice President for Biofuels, Petri Kukkonen.  READ MORE