Bio-aromatics from non-food biomass

Anellotech Inc. (USA), IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN, France) and its subsidiary Axens have announced a strategic alliance to develop and commercialize a new technology for the low cost production of bio-based benzene, toluene and paraxylene using Anellotech’s process of Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis (CFP) of biomass. The technology will address large-scale units and produce purified aromatics streams suitable for modern derivative production processes at a very competitive price with respect to their petroleum based counterparts.

This new technology should open the way to a competitive production of bio-aromatics from renewable resources. These drop-in green versions of widely used basic petrochemicals are utilized as raw materials in the production of consumer goods such as plastic bottles, clothing, carpeting, automotive parts, as well as other everyday products.

Within the alliance, Anellotech will continue its research work at the Pearl River facility on the clean technology platform for inexpensively producing bio-based aromatics from renewable non-food biomass. IFPEN will mainly focus on process scale-up and hydrodynamic studies at its Lyon site, France, and Axens will finalize development and basic plant design and prepare the technology for commercialization. It is expected that the technology will be ready for industrial implementation in 2019. Axens will market and license the technology globally and provide basic engineering design and start-up services while Anellotech, Axens and IFPEN conduct on-going research and development for continual process improvement and to support licensing efforts.

Source: IFPEN

Transport biofuels: ILUC prevention project published

Potential indirect land use change (ILUC) triggered by increased production of crops for biofuels has become a critical point of discussion. Various studies have shown a wide variability in potential ILUC impacts in different settings; and results remain uncertain. A key limitation of existing studies is that they exclude the impact of mitigation options.

The ILUC prevention project applied a regional approach that presumes that ILUC can be prevented if increased regional production is made possible without diverting other crop production nor expanding on high carbon stock or high conservation value lands.

Within the project, regional case studies were conducted. These studies investigated how much additional biofuel feedstock can be produced in a specific region with low risk of causing ILUC. Important aspects were also to assess the availability and reliability of data required for the analysis and to investigate policy and governance options relevant in the specific settings.

Quelle: Universität Utrecht

Sugarcane from Europe

Alkol Biotech (Spain) will develop new sugarcane varieties with better characteristics, such as better resistance to pests, higher sugar or fiber yields, more resistance to chemicals, etc. These varieties will be then exported to sugarcane growing countries such as USA, Brazil, China, etc, and royalties charged for their use. The company has started in January shipping of its EUnergyCane sugarcane hybrid grown in Spain. The first customer, a danish provider of cellulosic ethanol technologies, will use the hybrid to test its technologies aiming to the increasingly large cellulosic ethanol in Brazil, and is receiving it as dry bagasse. The EUnergyCane is a sugarcane hybrid grown in the south of Spain. It is a hybrid of naturally occurring sugarcane varieties grown for over 200 years in the south of Spain. To that end, the company is continuously improving it with the idea of farmers to grow it in the southern belt of Europe.

Source: Alkol Biotech

Roundtable of Sustainable Biomaterials calls for public comment on its principles & criteria

The Roundtable of Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) announced a 60-day public consultation for revision of the RSB Principles & Criteria starting on 28 January 2015.

Comments will feed into the discussions among RSB members over the forthcoming Version 3.0 of the Principles & Criteria, which is expected to be approved by the RSB Assembly of Delegates at the end of 2015.

The RSB Principles & Criteria represent the core of the RSB certification system. They describe the environmental and social requirements to be met by certified operators to ensure a sustainable production of biomass and biomaterials.

The consultation ends on 28 March 2015.

Go to consultation

EBTP-SABS Draft Report on “Barriers to Biofuels in Europe”

Technologies for the conversion of biomass are evolving rapidly, and their deployment on commercial scale is crucial for triggering an advanced biofuels industry. But the implementation of commercial scale projects is slowed down by factors that are not only directly connected with the global crisis.

The EBTP-SABS consortium (European Biofuels Technology Platform - Support for Advanced Biofuels Stakeholders) carried out an assessment among representatives of different entities in EU and non-EU countries. The data summarized represent the stance and the outlook of stakeholders that look at the perspectives of the advanced biofuels industry from the point of view of governments and governmental agencies, of the Academia and of the business community.

The responses show that technological barriers are being removed, or significantly mitigated; at the same time, new obstacles are jeopardizing the deployment of advanced biofuels industries. Respondents indicate two main weaknesses:

1. A frail biomass market that needs to strengthen value chains in the context of a growing competition between end-uses and relevant variability of prices.

2. The uncertain framework where uncertainty of EU strategies and trends couple with inconsistencies at national level and, more generally, with the lack of coherent strategies and action plans.

Download draft report

FaBE 2015 - extented deadline for papers

Mykonos/Greece, 28-31 May 2015

The 2nd Int. Conference on Food and Biosystems Engineering (FaBE 2015) deals with the application of novel technology in the sector of processing of agricultural and food products.

The conference aim is to

- Transfer of know - how for novel technologies (Transfer of Innovation)
- Appropriate solutions & consulting for production problems through research projects
- Scale up of the pilot plant tested production of new high added products at industrial scale.
- International Networking

The deadline for the abstract submission has now been extented to 15 March 2015.

Go to conference website