Advanced Biofuels to Convert Acquired Ethanol Plant to Advanced Cellulosic Production
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California, USA-based Advanced Biofuels Corp., has bought a legacy 7 million gal/yr ethanol plant in Moses Lake, Wash., with plans to retrofit existing systems and install new pretreatment process equipment, converting the facility into a 6 million gal/yr advanced ethanol facility, according to a report this past week by Ethanol Producer Magazine. Rhys Dale, VP and director of development for process providers Bio-Process Innovation Inc., says the company expects to produce 5 million gal/yr of cellulosic ethanol from wheat straw and an additional 1 million gal/yr from waste alcohol.
The Moses Lake project will be the first commercial application of the BPI biomass technology. The company was founded in the early 1980s by a group of Purdue University scientists, with Clark Dale serving as president and CEO, Ethanol Producer Magazine notes. BPI, West Lafayette, Ind., has developed processes for waste sugar streams, waste ethanol, and whey, as well as process technologies for the corn ethanol industry, including high gravity fermentation.
BPI describes its pretreatment process as low temperature steep delignification, which produces a concentrated cellulose/hemicellulose stream at low temperatures, pressures, and chemical loading levels. The soluble lignins are recovered while the cellulose/hemicellulose fraction is reportedly similar to paper pulp. BPI has developed a multi-stage continuous reactor separator that combines hydrolysis, fermentation, and separation of ethanol from biomass feedstocks. Concentrated ethanol beer or bio-solvents are stripped during the fermentation process. The C6 sugars are converted to ethanol while the C5s are separated for conversion to organic acids or biosolvents or used to produce single cell proteins.
BPI is currently developing a 1-tpd pilot facility as the final stages of financing are completed, Ethanol Producer Magazine reported. Financing should be in place within three to four months, and construction at Moses Lake should begin shortly after. The company projects that construction will take a year.
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