Biobutanol company Cobalt Technologies and American Process Inc. (API), a developer of lignocellulosic sugar production technologies, announced an agreement to build the world’s first industrial-scale cellulosic biorefinery to produce biobutanol.
Additionally, the companies agreed to jointly market a GreenPower+TM Biobutanol solution to biomass power facilities and other customers worldwide.
GreenPower+ Biobutanol technology selectively converts part of a boiler cellulosic biomass feedstock into renewable biobutanol, an industrial chemical, widely used in paints and other coatings and a platform for production of renewable jet fuel and other valuable compounds.
Under the agreement, Cobalt Technologies and American Process will integrate Cobalt’s continuous fermentation and distillation technology into American Process’s Alpena Biorefinery, currently under construction in Alpena, Michigan. Slated to begin ethanol production in early 2012 with a switch to biobutanol in mid 2012, the API Alpena Biorefinery will produce 470,000 gallons of biobutanol annually, which will be pre-sold to chemical industry partners.
"The American Process Alpena Biorefinery plant gives us a great opportunity to demonstrate our technology at a commercial scale and provides an excellent model for how GreenPower+ Biobutanol technology can add value to biomass power facilities," said Rick Wilson, Ph.D., and CEO of Cobalt Technologies." We expect to move quickly from running the Alpena plant to building multi-million gallon facilities."
Funded in part by an $18 million U.S. Department of Energy grant and a $4 million grant from the State of Michigan, the API Alpena Biorefinery will demonstrate the conversion of hemicelluloses extracted from woody biomass, to fermentable sugars that can be used for production of ethanol. Meanwhile, Cobalt’s technology will demonstrate that these sugars can also produce butanol.
GreenPower+ is a proprietary process for extracting hemicelluloses sugars from woody biomass using steam or hot water and converting them to fermentable sugars. The extracted biomass is returned–with consistent low moisture composition–to the biomass boiler for the production of steam and/or electricity–while sugars are converted to final bio-products.
Cobalt’s technology converts sugars from non-food feedstock, such as forest waste and mill residues, into biobutanol. Cobalt’s continuous butanol production system is based on advancements in biocatalyst selection, bioreactor design and process engineering. Cobalt says it’s technology reduces lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% versus the production of gasoline.
Cobalt is based in Mountain View, CA. Cobalt is backed by investors in the cleantech sector, including Pinnacle Ventures, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), Burrill and Company, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, @Ventures, and Harris & Harris.
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