Inside the Cellulosic Industry

August 04, 2017

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by Susanne Retka Schill and Ann Bailey (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Ethanol Producer Magazine provides an update on 10 cellulosic ethanol projects around the world striving for continuous, large-scale production. -- Some things have changed in the U.S.’s cellulosic ethanol sector in the past year—two new companies have emerged to pick up cellulosic ethanol development from high-profile projects in Hugoton, Kansas, and Vero Beach, Florida. Other things seem to never change. Though several commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants have completed construction and held grand openings, none have produced the fuel in double-digit, multi-million-gallon volumes. According to U.S. EPA data, 1.3 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol generated D3 RINs through the first four months of this year, on pace to match the 3.8 million gallons produced in all of 2016.

While the first-of-their-kind cellulosic facilities are approaching the end of extended commissioning and full production, all are hoping the market opens up. “The most immediate challenge to cellulosic biofuels in the U.S. is the Reid vapor pressure limitations on E15 sales during the summer months,” says Jeff Pinkerman, chairman of the Poet-DSM board of directors. “Cellulosic and other advanced biofuels need to see that consumer-driven market growth in order to have the confidence to move forward with building more facilities. It’s hard to predict the rollout of cellulosic biofuels until we see that market open up.”

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DuPont Cellulosic Ethanol LLC
Koninckx (Jan Koninckx, global business director for biofuels at DuPont Industrial Biosciences) reports the plant in Nevada, Iowa, is processing feedstock as it reaches the final stages of the commissioning process.

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At full capacity, the 30 MMgy plant will process 375,000 dry tons of corn stover, harvested from around 190,000 acres within 30 miles of the plant. After size reduction, the biomass is pretreated using high heat and chemicals before processing with DuPont’s propriety enzymes and microorganism. The lignin coproduct is dried and used as boiler fuel.

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Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels LLC—Project Liberty
Construction of an on-site enzyme manufacturing (OSM) facility is expected to start this summer at Project Liberty in Emmetsburg, Iowa—probably the best sign that the extended commissioning for the cellulosic ethanol plant is coming to a close.

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Inaugurated in a grand opening ceremony in August, 2014, Project Liberty is expected to covert 770 tons of biomass per day at full capacity to produce ethanol at a rate of 20 MMgy, ramping up to 25 MMgy.

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The Poet-DSM process includes a new pretreatment technology developed internally after a third-party pretreatment regimen proved unsatisfactory. The pretreatment process and enzymes break down the cellulose from corn stover into fermentable sugars, which are then converted to ethanol. The waste products are separated into solids and liquids and sent to a solid-fuel boiler or anaerobic digester to produce more renewable fuel.

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Alliance Bio-Products
Within the past year, IneosBio announced it was ending its cellulosic ethanol development and selling its 8 MMgy Vero Beach, Florida, facility. Alliance Bio-Products, a subsidiary of Alliance Bioenergy, stepped up to make a bid. Company Chairman Daniel de Liege says a private placement fundraising round was completed in early June, and with the required equity and debt in hand, a final bid was placed on the Florida facility. USDA approved the purchase in July. De Liege says the facility’s biomass handling and back-end ethanol distillation units will be useable, while the gasification unit will be replaced with Alliance’s cellulose-to-sugar (CTS) reactor. The facility should be operational in 2018.

Alliance began scaling up its CTS process in 2015. “What we found was the process actually got more efficient,” de Liege says. “It got easier the larger it got. The reason is it’s a mechanical process—a new chemistry—where we’re dealing with mechanical force, time and temperature.” In the mechanocatalytic process, after size reduction, biomass is fed into a reactor with a solid catalyst. The reactor is adapted from the ball mills used in the mining industry to crush and pulverize rock. The catalyst is based on common, widely available kaolinite clay. The acidic clay-based catalyst, combined with the impact forces in the ball mill, breaks down the chemical bonds in cellulosic material, releasing water to complete hydrolysis, producing simple sugars for fuels or chemicals. De Liege says 20 to 25 pounds of dry biomass will produce a gallon of ethanol.

A commercial-scale reactor was tested at Longwood, Florida. The modular design calls for three reactors in a process train—one loading, one operating and one unloading—to create a continuous process capable of handling 250 tons per day.

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Synata Bio Inc.
On Nov. 29, 2016, in an order signed by Judge Robert Nugent, the Kansas bankruptcy court approved Synata Bio Inc.’s $48.5 million bid for Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass in Hugoson, Kansas. Court documents say the sale included the 25 MMgy nameplate cellulosic production plant and electric cogeneration plant, and 400 acres of land.

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LanzaTech
In spring 2016, Aemetis Inc. announced the acquisition of exclusive rights to LanzaTech’s patented technology for the conversion of agricultural, forest, dairy, construction and demolition wastes to ethanol in California. Aemetis currently has a 60 MMgy ethanol plant in California that uses about 20 million bushels per year of corn and milo from the Midwest. The LanzaTech technology will allow Aemetis to use feedstock sources closer to the plant, lowering costs, says Aemetis President and CEO Eric McAfee.

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Enerkem
Enerkem built and installed a new ethanol unit at its facility in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and will begin producing second-generation ethanol ...

Enerkem Alberta Biofuels is a commercial, single-line methanol-ethanol plant located next to the Edmonton Waste Management Center. Boisseau says the plant annually uses 100,000 metric tons of noncompostable, nonrecyclable municipal solid waste for its feedstock.

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Iogen Corp.
Iogen Corp. and sugarcane producer Raízen launched a $105 million advanced biofuel facility in Piracicaba, Sao Paul, Brazil, in July 2015. The 10 MMgy plant converts biogas from feedstocks such as sugar and straw into cellulosic biofuel. ... Raízen says it intends to deploy Iogen’s technology in seven more sugarcane mills.

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Beta Renewables
Beta Renewables, based in Tortona, Italy, owns the Proesa technology, a process that produces biofuels and chemical intermediates from agricultural wastes and nonfood feedstocks. Beta Renewables manages a second-generation 13 MMgy cellulosic ethanol plant in Crescentino, Italy.

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Inbicon
Prospects for a cellulosic ethanol plant to be built as part of the Maabjerg Energy Center in Denmark had a breakthrough investment this spring, says Jorgen Udby, Inbicon’s board chairman. Inbicon, owned by Dong Energy, has a lignocellulose biomass conversion technology. The project, announced several years ago, would build a cellulosic ethanol plant alongside a biogas plant and biomass-fired cogeneration plant.

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Plans are for annual production of 80 million gallons of ethanol, 50 million cubic meters of biogas, and electricity and district heat production capable of serving 25,000 households. MEC will process 300,000 tons of straw, 800,000 tons of biomass for biogas and 100,000 tons of waste.

Praj
Praj has a second-generation ethanol technology that features a biochemical process using thermal pretreatment, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis. The company inaugurated its integrated biorefinery demonstration plant for renewable fuels near Pune, India, in May. It is India’s first integrated biorefinery demonstration plant and produces 1 million liters of ethanol annually. READ MORE