Cobalt Pre-Treatment Test Clears Way for Commercial Scale

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In California, Cobalt Technologies announced that it has successfully demonstrated its dilute acid hydrolysis pretreatment process, the first step of Cobalt’s process for converting sugars into n-butanol for use as a renewable chemical or fuel. Cobalt’s dilute acid hydrolysis pretreatment process, which extracts sugars from ligno-cellulosic biomass, was validated on woody biomass, bagasse and agricultural residues.

The test Cobalt conducted the testing in the ANDRITZ pulp and paper mill demonstration facility in Springfield, Ohio, which is specifically designed to validate new processes before commercial-scale implementation.

...These runs, while processing up to 20 bone-dry tons of biomass per day, successfully extracted sugars from the biomass without the use of enzymes to produce the desired liquid hydrolysate – a liquid-based sugar that is then converted into n-butanol.

The bottom line...Cobalt’s progress highlights that not all companies will be looking to third-party providers for a stream of low-cost sugars – some like Cobalt (and Mascoma, which acquired SunOpta’s pretreatment business) will supply their own renewable sugars through vertical integration.

...One final impact – there’s already a heavy competition in biobutanol between Butamax and Gevo (which both name isobutanol). Now, a third competitor has come along – making n-butanol – but one which can utilize low-cost cellulosic feedstocks, including woody biomass in addition to bagasse. READ MORE and MORE (Sacramento Bee)