Leaf signs land purchase option for a biorefinery project in Malaysia
The Australian Leaf Resources recently announced (see press
release, 16/11/2017) that a Term Sheet for an option to purchase a land
area of 5.7 ha located in Segamat (Johor, Malaysia) has been signed by Leaf
Malaysia (100% owned subsidiary of Leaf Resources) and Leaf Development LLC (joint
venture of Leaf Resources and Claeris). It
is a 2-year option that allows Leaf Malaysia time to develop the FEL3
engineering package, arrange permitting and negotiate and sign the EPC contract
of a biorefinery project based on its Glycell technology.
Background
In October 2016, Leaf Resources signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with Agensi
Inovasi Malaysia (AIM, statutory body under the Prime Minister’s department)
and a Letter of Facilitation and Collaboration with Malaysian Bioeconomy
Development Corporation (see press
release, 25/10/2016). According to a report
issued in June this year by Lodge
Partners, the Malaysian federal and state governments had identified two
viable locations for a bio-hub development in the state of Sarawak. Leaf’s process
would be the vital link to convert biomass to industrial sugars and ensure the
creation of the renewable chemical bio-hub. If the land purchase option which
has just been made public is exercised, the first Glycell biorefinery will not
be located in the state of Sarawak but in the state of Johor.
The aforementioned agreements
envisaged the construction of an initial 100,000 bone dry tons (bdt) facility,
with an early 300,000 bdt expansion. The press release confirms a processing
capacity for the new plant of 100,000 bdt of Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) waste from
the palm oil industry.
Site characteristics
The site is ideally suited for Leaf’s proposed project:
- Excellent biomass availability. Within an
approximate 120 km radius, there are 52 palm mills that can provide 10,000
metric tons per day of EFB (Leaf’s first commercial requirement is 600 metric
tons per day).
- Industrial scale EFB handling.
- Key infrastructure and utilities are established
and accessible.
- Excellent logistics.
- Income tax exemption (potential for “Less
Developed Area” incentives).
The Glycell process
and the technology partners
Leaf Resource’s proprietary Glycell process breaks
down waste plant biomass utilizing glycerol to produce C5 and C6 cellulosic
sugars with lignin and refined glycerol as by-products. The process inputs
cheap waste glycerol from biodiesel industry and recovers it in a purified form
at a higher market value.
Figure 1. Glycell process scheme showing technology
partner contribution (extracted from “Malaysia to be front runner for first
commercial plant”, a report issued by Lodge Partners in 23/06/2017)
In July 2016, Leaf announced the creation of a
joint venture (Leaf Development LLC) with Claeris LLC. This company has been
instrumental in bringing the current Malaysian opportunity from the conceptual
stage to the point of high-level government negotiation and agreement.
Andritz has designed components for the Glycell
pretreatment process. Leaf Resources and Andritz have undertaken evaluation of
the technology on a number of specific biomass products including: Eucalyptus
Globulus, EFB, sugar cane bagasse, wheat straw and various other hardwoods. Validation
of the Glycell process has been made by Andritz at a 10 tons per day (5 bdt) test
facility.
In December 2016, Leaf announced a
collaboration with Novozymes to further enhance the performance of the Glycell
process. Novazymes has independently validated the Glycell process results that
were evaluated by Andritz.
Amalgamated Research LLC (ARi) has tested filtrate
from the Glycell process and confirmed that greater than 95% of the glycerol in
the filtrate is recoverable by SMB chromatography at 95% purity.
