Conversion Pathways for Bioenergy: Cellulosic Bioproducts--Virent is Replacing the Crude Oil

Andrew Held (Virent) Andrew Held, Director of Virent Feedstock Development, explained that Virent creates gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and chemicals from biomass feedstocks. Virent, founded in 2002 and based in Madison, WI , has a 63,000 sq. ft. facility with more than 20 pilot plants. Virent’s production capacity is 10,000 gal/yr, and more than $61 MM of its development funding comes from government and industry. Virent’s strategic investors and partners include Cargill, Shell, Honda, HCL CleanTech, NABC, NRCL, Pacific Northwest, DOE, NIST and DEPA.

Virent uses chemical catalysis to convert renewable feedstocks to drop-in hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. The feedstocks include sugar cane and biomass corn starch. Virent premium biogasoline produces 120,000 Btu/gal and is used in Scuderia Ferrari race fuel. Renewable BioFormate^TM, made mainly from corn stover cellulosic materials, is rich in C8 aromatics. Virent’s approach enables renewable content in a broad range of products including PET, polyurethane, and polycarbonates. Bio-based paraxylene (BioFormPX^TM) was separated and purified from BioFormateTM made on Virent’s 10,000 gal/yr demonstration scale plant. Virent’s processes are tunable to produce distillate products per ASTM. Virent’s jet fuel contains renewable parrafins and naphthenes (RPN) with good density and high energy density, lower freeze point (<-74⁰C) and less sulfur content. Virent technology can address more than 90% of the barrel, and it will replace the whole barrel in the near future. Virent biomass deconstruction technology is designed as catalytic deconstruction and catalyst separation. Desirable feedstock would be 30-70% wt% soluble carbohydrates, rich of furans or organic acids.

Virent unveiled its biobased P-Xylene process on June 02, 2011. They received a DOE grant of $13.4 MM which was announced on June 10, 2011 for Virent’s cellulosic sugars to jet fuel project. This 3-year project will co-operate with partners NREL and Northwest University. The aim of this project is to produce jet fuels at high concentration.

This presentation includes photos of Virent’s plant and equipment along with graphs, diagrams and illustrations explaining its process. READ MORE Download presentation