LONDON, Ont. — A technology developed by Greenfield Specialty Alcohols Inc. in Ontario could revolutionize cellulosic ethanol production.
“We have validated this at pilot scale. Now we have to validate this on a larger scale, and we’re confident we’ll get there,” says Barry Wortzman, Greenfield’s vice-president of business development.
“We’ve been at this for six years so we like to think this could be big.”
The company is building a mobile unit capable of processing 3.5 dry tonnes of biomass, which Wortzman expects will be operational by the end of summer.
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“We need to build and operate this system in order to complete our design specifications for a commercial-sized application,” he said in an interview from his office in Toronto.
“We need to run this one to understand the bore-size diameter of the extruder barrel.”
The technology involves a two-stage extrusion and cooking process, which releases sugar from cellulosic biomass sources such as corn stover, switchgrass and wood, said Jason Kotler, a member of Greenfield’s innovation and commercialization team.
“On average, there is an 89 percent recovery of both C-5 and C-6 sugars,” Kotler told the Growing the Margins conference held in London March 3-4.
“At the end of the day, we’re getting 315 to 330 litres per dry metric tonne of biomass.”
Wortzman said commercial operations using the technology could range from 30 to 100 million litres of annual capacity and process 250 to 1,000 dry tonnes of material a day. Integration of the technology into one of Greenfield’s existing plants in Ontario or Quebec is a possibility.
Greenfield produces 655 million litres of ethanol a year from grain corn at its plants at Chatham, Tiverton and Johnstown in Ontario and Vergennes in Quebec, along with dry distillers grain and carbon dioxide.
The company has also diversified into food and beverage ingredients and low-grade heat supplied to a greenhouse across the road from its Chatham plant.
IPGC Ethanol Inc. of Aylmer, Ont., is also diversifying. The farmer-owned co-operative has paid off its debt and provided shareholders with an annual return on their investment since breaking ground in 2007, chief executive officer Jim Grey told the Growing the Margins conference.
The company plans to introduce a fractionation process next year to improve ethanol yield and produce high protein distillers grain. There is also potential for the production of food grade oil, bio-diesel and isobutanol.
“That is what IPGC is pursuing, and I would suggest most of the facilities are as well,” Grey said.
IPGC is also talking about using carbon dioxide as a feedstock for a biological process developed in the United Kingdom.
The two-stage process harnesses the power of photosynthesis on a cellular-molecular level.
The first stage produces C-5 and C-6 sugars, and the second converts the sugar into a vegetable oil. Canola and castor oil are among the possibilities.
