A New York-based cellulosic sugar producer has received the 2013 Sustainable Biofuels Feedstock Process Award.

Sweetwater Energy received the award at this year’s World Biofuels Markets and Bio-based Chemicals Conference currently being held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The award recognizes the most exciting new feedstock innovation in the development of truly sustainable and renewable fuel and chemical solutions in the global biofuels market.

“We’re very pleased to receive this recognition, especially on the global stage,” says Arunas Chesonis, Chairman and CEO of Sweetwater. “Sweetwater’s sugar platform technology is a way to help our customers take a step away from the difficulties of managing various types of feedstocks, and to have at their disposal a simple, clean source of carbon from which to produce fuels, plastics, and other useful chemicals. It’s gratifying to know we’re processing carbon captured from the atmosphere by crops and trees over the past few years, as opposed to carbon from 100 million years ago in the case of fossil fuel.”

The award is in recognition of Sweetwater’s patented cellulosic sugar technology, as well as for the patented decentralized business model that allows refineries to transition to cellulosic feedstocks gradually and without large capital outlays usually associated with cutting-edge cellulosic technologies. Sweetwater uses a unique technology to produce low-cost sugars from non-food plant materials, including waste materials such as crop residues, wood thinning, or non-food, purpose-grown crops such as energy sorghum. This highly fermentable sugar solution is sold to refineries, which use it to produce biofuels, biochemicals, and bioplastics.