Progress is being made on the world’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol production plant, according to a company release from SunOpta, Inc. of Ontario, Canada. The wheat straw to ethanol plant is located in Babilafuente (Salamanca), Spain and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abengoa S.A., the largest ethanol producer in Europe and the second largest in the world. SunOpta is providing the biomass pretreatment system for the plant, which is based on proprietary and patented technologies and is the only industrially proven continuous system in the world.
Within the last two weeks SunOpta shipped the Pretreatment System for the Abengoa Bioenergy Research and Development pilot plant to be built at the Abengoa corn starch to ethanol plant located at York, Nebraska. This pilot plant is funded by the US Department of Energy and will prove new advances in Biomass Conversion technologies utilizing the Pretreatment System from SunOpta Inc.
SunOpta will present their Pretreatment Technology for the production of cellulosic ethanol at the 28th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, April 30 – May 3, 2006 in Nashville, Tennessee. This will highlight the latest advancements in SunOpta’s Biomass Conversion Technology to produce ethanol from renewable resources such as grasses, wood chips, garbage and energy specific crops.