Butamax will produce biobutanol in a newly acquired facility in Kansas
Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC, the joint venture between BP and DuPont, announced on 3rd April
the acquisition of Nesika Energy LLC and its ethanol facility (see press release and further
details). The
company intends to add isobutanol capacity to this plant located in Scandia
(Kansas, USA) and it will start immediately the detailed engineering. The
facility will continue producing ethanol before and after adding this capacity.
DuPont, BP and Butamax have worked collaboratively with the state of Kansas, partnering
with the state on economic incentives and job creation is key to the success of
the project.
Figure 1. Butamax's newly acquired plant in
Scandia (extracted from the press release)
Biobutanol is commonly used to refer to the
butanol produced from biomass. It was traditionally obtained by the ABE process
(as n-butanol) and, at present, several players involved in the biobutanol
production are developing modifications of the original ABE process. Other
companies have created their own proprietary yeasts to convert fermentable
sugars into isobutanol through synthetic biology. This is the case of Butamax
whose technology is based on engineered Pseudomonas.
Isobutanol can be blended with gasoline in higher concentrations than ethanol
without compromising compatibility or performance. In the chemicals industry,
it is used both directly and as an important building-block for a wider range
of products.
NOTE: If you want to learn more about
biobutanol, you can read this post.
Butamax was formed to develop and commercialize
bio-isobutanol as a next generation renewable biofuel and chemical. The company
benefits from the combination of the proven industrial biotechnology experience
of DuPont and the global fuels market knowledge of BP. The way towards commercialization
started with a demonstration plant which is operational since 2010 in Hull (UK).
The next step was the retrofit of the Highwater
Ethanol plant in Lamberton (MN, USA) to isobutanol production. In August 2014,
Butamax announced that the construction of Phase 1 of the retrofit was
completed. Phase 1 included the implementation of a proprietary Butamax
technology to remove corn oil and prepare corn mash for fermentation. However,
the facility is still running in full ethanol production mode and there is no
information available on the finalization of the retrofit works.
Therefore, this announcement is very important for
the demonstration of the Butamax technology at commercial scale. When the newly
acquired facility in Kansas has bio-isobutanol production capability, it will
be used as a demonstrator for potential licensees to see the technology in
operation and serve as a proving ground for future developments.
