Emerging renewable technology development company describes the lessons it’s learned along the way.
by Carl LehrburgerIt takes more than vision to swim in these deep waters, says Ed Lehrburger, CEO of PureVision Technology, Inc., based in Ft. Lupton, Colorado. He refers to the emerging biorefining industry of producing fuels and other useful byproducts from biomass materials and waste streams. The players include both small technology firms like PureVision and giant corporations like ADM and Dupont – all working to find the right mix of science and economics to birth a new industry called biorefining.
In spite of its small size (six employees), PureVision is developing a new biomass “fractionation” or separation technology that could lead to economical biorefineries in the next three or four years. Biorefineries process biomass into fuels, fiber, chemicals and energy. Unlike oil refineries that rely on petroleum inputs, domestic feedstocks for biorefineries include such diverse biomass as agricultural residues (corn stover, rice hulls and sugar cane bagasse), wood (including forest and wood residues and energy crops such as hybrid poplar), municipal solid waste, and some industrial sludges.
Unlike competitive approaches that rely on acids to pretreat and recover biomass, PureVision’s technology uses a patented process to fractionate biomass into its basic components at an expected lower cost to both the operator and the environment.
With more that 25 years of experience running successful businesses, Lehrburger has been PureVision’s primary team builder, communicator, financier, and negotiator during the last six years.
How Biorefinery Technology Works |
Finding Strategic Partners
“A key to our success thus far,” says Lehrburger, “has been finding strategic partners, industry alliances and US government agencies willing to invest and join with us in scaling up our fractionation technology. Applying for grants and receiving awards from the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Agriculture, and the National Science Foundation is paving the way for the PureVision biorefinery initiative to emerge. Unlike venture capital financing, these funds do not dilute equity in our company. These grants help us and our collaborators establish clear pathways to commercialize our resource recovery technology. Without these grants, it would be extremely hard to survive the valley of death that most start-up technology companies have to go through,” he said.
Since 2000, PureVision has been working with the Western Research Institute at its Bioprocessing Laboratory in Laramie, Wyoming to scale-up the PureVision innovation with partial funding provided by the US DOE. And DOE announced PureVision and its collaborators will receive a $2 million award under the 2003 Farm Bill to scale up its biorefinery technology for converting corn stover (cobs, stalks and leaves) into multiple resources. Collaboration partners include Genencor International, Tennessee Valley Authority, The Harris Group, The National Renewable Energy Lab and the Western Research Institute. This award follows two recent National Science Foundation Small Business Innovative Research awards and several other DOE-funded technology grants.
PureVision was originally launched to apply environmental technology and biological processes to economically recover waste streams at time when the term “biorefineries” was not even used. PureVision has had to adopt its approach to new biorefinergy configurations, emerging technologies, changing industry players and government funding programs. Because we have remained small, we have been able to adapt quickly and strike out in new directions when necessary.
Dick Wingerson, the company’s chief scientist and a co-founder, invented the fractionation technology in 1999 as a means of reducing the cost of recovering biomass material. The fractionation process is achieved in a continuous reactor where the solid cellulose portion of biomass is “refined” by removing the lignin and hemicellulose in the wash streams. The lignin-free cellulose is then amenable to enzymatic hydrolysis requiring far fewer enzymes compared to other pre-treatment technologies. Other significant advantages of this biomass “pre-treatment” approach include no acid inputs and production of essentially pure cellulose for use as a fiber or alternatively as a feedstock to produce sugars for downstream processing into ethanol and other chemicals.
The market for the fractionation technology included the producers of agricultural residues, wood wastes and municipal solid wastes as well as producers of bioproducts including pulp and paper, ethanol and bioplastic companies. PureVision plans to target the pulp and paper industry that is seeking more environmental pulping technologies to replace traditional kraft processing. The company is also looking at traditional ethanol producers who use only corn kernels and cane sugar to make ethanol while the corn husks and sugar cane stalks are discarded. The fractionation process would use these and other agricultural residues to produce fiber, fuels and industrial chemicals.
PureVision has tested the fractionation process in lab-scale and two bench-scale units before seeking the resources for testing at larger pilot facilities. With good data, the company was able to justify investing in its own small pilot plant, a continuous process development unit. The Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to host a demonstration scale biorefinery to provide the necessary design and engineering data to develop commercial projects.
Larger companies presently processing biomass in traditional methods including conventional ethanol, agriculture, forest products and solid waste industries dominate the emerging biorefining industry. The new PureVision process will expand processing capabilities in these industries by using “waste” feedstocks and producing multiple bioproducts. Potential competitors working on biorefining technologies include Dupont, ADM, Cargill Dow and Cargill. In spite of their larger size and deeper pockets, PureVision expects these companies could become customers instead of competitors in the quest for the most economical methods of processing biomass into resources.
Hazards of R&D
Research and development is a risky business with many starts and stalls along the way. Our executives have found a way to make it work over the years by paying compensation with stock options instead of large cash salaries and keeping the overhead low by creatively sharing resources with other related businesses.
Leadership is a big part of our recent success. If you’re excited, honest and conscientious in what you do, people will listen. If they can see how it will benefit them, they’ll join in. This leads to a team effort capable of establishing credibility and momentum in the marketplace to move from R&D into commercialization. With the Farm Bill award and our expanding team of public, educational and private sector collaborators, we’re one step closer to that goal.
PureVision is currently seeking alliances with private companies, biomass generators, and project developers to identify and develop biorefinery projects.
++++
| Carl Lehrburger is a co-founder of PureVision and has been involved with beneficial reuse of organic solid wastes for many years. Contact him: Carl@PureVisionTechnology.com |
www.purevisiontechnology.com
FROM In Business Magazine, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner
(Visited 62 times, 4 visits today)
Loading...