Advanced BioFuels USA

(Clariant/Ethanol Producer Magazine)  Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, and Scania, one of the world’s top heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers, are celebrating the results and the opportunities generated by the partnership established last year, which involved an investment in sustainable technologies for cargo transportation.

In mid-2015, Clariant acquired three Scania P 270 model 4×2 trucks, which run on ethanol and are the first of their kind to be sold by Scania in Latin America. The Ecotrucks, as they are called, transport ISO tanks with a 25,000-liter (6,604 gallon) capacity for chemical products to the fleet of highway trucks, which then deliver the products to Clariant’s customers.  …   After nearly a year of using the Ecotrucks, Clariant can verify a reduction in CO2 emissions by approximately 90 percent compared to the diesel engines that were used before.

“Clariant is making history in Latin America with this innovative project that demonstrates the value of using ethanol trucks for daily operations. Clariant’s example is drawing interest from other companies that have already contacted Scania about this solution,” says Celso Mendonça, business development manager for Scania Brazil. “Scania values sustainability, so it believes in having an energy matrix that is mixed, uses different sources and allows for fuel savings and a reduction in CO2 emissions. Ethanol-fueled trucks are a solution for companies committed to reducing the environmental impacts of their transportation operations. It is a 100 percent viable option.”

The ethanol fuel used by the Scania trucks contains the Master Batch ED 95 additive produced by Clariant Brasil. The fact that it’s produced locally was essential to the viability of the project as this optimizes costs and logistics. The additive allows engines designed to run on diesel to run on hydrous ethanol because it adjusts the characteristics of the fuel to the engines’ requirements in order to make the vehicle run well.

As the second phase of this project, Clariant started using second-generation ethanol as part of the fuel to operate the Ecotrucks. This ethanol is manufactured from sugar cane bagasse using the innovative sunliquid technology.

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Scania is a global provider of sustainable solutions and offers products that run on alternative fuels such as biogas, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, biodiesel, bioethanol, hybrid diesel and electricity, as well as products that utilize hybrid ultracapacitors, a combination of ethanol and battery power, and hybrid diesel and biodiesel technology that meet Euro 6 standards. In Brazil, along with ethanol-fueled vehicles, the brand offers trolleybus chassis and busses that run on biomethane/GNV.  READ MORE