DEMONSTRATION FACILITY INDUSTRY NEWS
Ethanol from cellulose process ready for scale-up
T
he ZeaChem process for the production of chemicals and ethanol from a renewable,
sustainable feedstocks process has progressed from bench-scale testing to a full demonstration facility. Andritz pretreatment technologies were selected to provide the front-end for this high-yield process.
ZeaChem, a biorefining technology company and project developer, follows two basic concepts: Go where you grow and build to serve. “For us, this means locating facilities next to sustainable, economic feedstock supplies and developing projects, which produce products that serve customers and their regional markets,” said Tim Eggeman, ZeaChem’s CEO. Eggeman is a founder of ZeaChem and co-inventor of the ZeaChem process. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering
and at one time worked for Coors Brewing in Colorado. That is where he met co-inventor Dan Verser. The company they founded in 2002 attracted venture capital from well- known backers and received a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a demonstration facility. Eggeman and Chief
Commercial Officer Joe Regnery assert that they can make bio- based chemicals and fuels from sustainable non-food biomass that are cost-competitive with fossil fuel-based equivalents. Although their process works with a variety of feedstocks, ZeaChem is initially focused on woody biomass. “First,” said Regnery, “woody biomass is much denser than agricultural residues. This means it can be sourced from a much smaller land area. Secondly, wood can also be stored on the stump
and harvested in a just-in-time fashion, reducing harvesting and storage logistics.”
Star of the show Biomass consists of three main components: Cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Bio- based chemicals and fuels are produced by breaking apart the cellulosic chain of sugar molecules into single molecules, which can then be ‘digested’ by micro-organisms. Regardless of the micro-organism used, this chemical separation step (hydrolysis) is needed. That is where Andritz comes in. The ‘breaking down’ is quite similar to pulping, according to Bertil Stromberg, Vice- President of Biofuels for Andritz, except that the final objective is different. “In the pulping world, the goal is to preserve the cellulose,” stated Stromberg. “In biorefining, the goal is to break
the cellulose down.”
According to Allen Turner, Senior Sales Manager for Biofuels at Andritz, “The concepts of biofuel development have been around, but we are now at a point where there is a very real possibility to make it commercially attractive. This is because of the advances in developing micro-organisms that work effectively and cheaply”. ZeaChem uses a portfolio of micro-organisms, yeasts and bacteria to produce organic acids, ethanol and derivative products. One star of the ZeaChem show is the Moorella thermoacetica bacteria. The Moorella bug makes a human hair look like a giant. It ranges in size from 0.4-2.8 micrometers (millionths of a meter), while a human hair is about 100- 200 micrometers in thickness. What Moorella does well is produce acetic acid without
Poplar trees at GreenWood Resources tree farm near Boardman, Oregon.
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