Europe-based Global Bioenergies says it has made the first isobutene production from waste biomass. This company news release says it used its proven method of using first generation feedstock, such as wheat-derived glucose, and adapted it use non-edible resources, such as wheat straw, corn stover, sugar cane bagasse or even wood chips.
Various companies are presently debottlenecking the conversion of second generation materials into fermentable sugars. These technologies have now matured to commercial scale, with five plants having started operations in the last 24 months. This industry ultimately has the potential to provide fermentation processes with low-cost sugars derived from abundant resources.
Global Bioenergies has recently established collaborations with nine companies from three continents developing the most promising technologies to convert various resources (straw, bagasse, wood.) into fermentable sugars. Preliminary tests have resulted in successful second generation isobutene production at the laboratory scale, with process performances similar to the ones observed using wheat-derived glucose.
Frederic Paques, Chief Operating Officer at Global Bioenergies comments: “We have now demonstrated experimentally that our isobutene production process is compatible with a range of second generation resources. Using impurity-containing sugar solutions is usually difficult in classical fermentation processes that lead to liquid compounds, because the accumulation of such impurities in the culture broth makes purifying the product more complex. Our process, which is based on the production of a gaseous product, alleviates these issues and will allow us to use the
cheapest types of feedstock.”
Company officials add that they want to apply this method to the manufacturing of transportation fuels such as gasoline and jet fuel.