Category Archives: Sustainable Biotechnology

11.08.2015   Sustainable Biotechnology

Technical Issues at Present

Currently, technologies for both biochemical and thermochemical conversions of lignocellulosic biomass are being investigated at research and small pilot plant lev­els. Demonstration facilities are being built with financial inputs from the DOE (Table 1).

Irrespective of conversion technology, there are several feedstock production and logistics (transportation and storage) issues to be addressed to ensure a usable and consistent supply. For the biochemical conversion process, the major technical

Company

Project Location

Capacity (MMG)

Feedstock

Conversion Technology

Startup

Abengoa Bioenergy

Hugoton, KS

Ethanol 11.4

Wheat straw, sorghum stubble, switchgrass; 700 t/d

Biochemical and Thermochemical

2011

BlueFire Ethanol. Inc.

Corona. CA

Ethanol 19

Green waste, wood waste, municipal cellulose waste; 700 t/d

Concentrated acid

2009

Mascoma Corp.

Kinross. MI

Ethanol 40

Wood chips and waste

Biochemical

2011

POET

Emmetburg, IA

Ethanol ~30,

corn fiber, cob. stover; 842 t/d

Biochemical

2011

Range Fuels

Soperton, GA

Ethanol 40; methanol. 9

Wood residue, chips. 1200 t/d

Gasification, catalytic reaction

2011

Ecofin LLC

Nicholasville, KY

Ethanol 1; others

corn cob

Solid fermentation

2010

Flambeau River

Park Falls. WI

Diesel 6

paper mill and forest residues

Gasification + Fischer-Tropsch

2010

Biofuels LLC

ICM

St. Joseph. MO

Ethanol 1.5

Corn fiber, corn stover, switchgrass and sorghum

Biochemical + thermochemical

2010

Lignol Innovations

Grand Junction. CO

Ethanol 2.0; Lignin, furfural

Soft and hard wood residue

Organolv-biochemical

2012

NewPage

Wisconsin Rapids. WI

Boardman, OR

Diesel 5.5

Mill residues, wood chips

Gasification + Fischer-Tropsch

2010

Pacific Ethanol

Ethanol 2.7; Hi. methane etc.

Wheat straw, corn stover and poplar residue

DTU biogasol technology

2009

RSE Pulp and Chemical

Old Town. ME

Ethanol 2.2

Extracted hemicellulose during pulping

Fermentation

2010

LLC

Verenium

Jennings. LA

Methanol 1.4

Bagasse, wood waste. . energy crops, etc.

Dilute acid, biochemical

2009

Table 1 Current DOE funded commercial and demonstration scale cellulosic biofuel projects

Sources: http://www. energy. gov/media/ProjectOverview. pdf and http://www. energy. gov/media/Biofuels_Project_Locations. pdf

Biofuels from Lignocellulosic Biomass

barriers are pretreatment technology, function and cost of hydrolytic enzymes, mitigation of inhibitors, and fermentation of C6 and C5 sugars [11]. For the ther­mochemical conversion process, the major technical barriers include understanding the kinetics of gasification, syngas clean-up techniques, and advanced catalyst development (selectivity and longevity) for the FT process [16].

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