Process Integrated Enzyme Production: The Cost-Efficient Way to Commercially Viable 2G Cellulosic Ethanol

by Markus Rarbach (Clariant/Biofuels Digest) Cellulosic ethanol is no longer a topic solely discussed in scientific papers or conferences, or by the academic world. It has made its way through the stages of technology development, from lab scale to pilot, to demo and now to commercial-scale plants. It is safe to say that at the end of 2016 our industry has managed some of the main technological hurdles; today, the main talk is about the economic competitiveness of the technology.

Our approach at Clariant when developing the sunliquid® technology was to deliver an entirely integrated process from feedstock to finished product including our proprietary enzyme and fermentation organism platform ...

Basically there are three different scenarios of how to get the enzymes you need for your cellulosic ethanol production facility (Figure 1). First, you buy them from a third-party supplier (off-site production). Second, you (or a third-party) build a small enzyme plant at your cellulosic ethanol facility (on-site or the “OSM” approach). The feedstock for enzyme production in this case is conventional carbohydrates like glucose. And third, you make enzyme production a part of your cellulosic ethanol production process by using the same biomass as a carbon source to produce the enzymes. Both, biomass and energy flows are integrated with the main production plant. The main advantage of this third approach is, that you substitute a rather expensive feedstock (glucose) by a cheaper one, biomass. In addition, this substitution of feedstock allows to produce 100% advanced ethanol with the lowest carbon intensity possible as no food or feed feedstock enters the production process, neither directly nor indirectly. Plus, you produce the enzymes you need when and where you need them, eluding dependence on suppliers, formulation, stabilization and transportation costs. READ MORE