Aemetis signs an agreement on gasification process as part of a strategy to produce cellulosic ethanol
It seems that Aemetis
could fill the gap left by Ineos Bio when it decided to close its New Planet
BioEnergy plant in 2016. This facility had been constructed for demonstrating
at full commercial scale the conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks to
bioethanol and renewable electricity utilizing a process coupling gasification and
fermentation technologies. By the way, as recently reported by the blog, Alliance
Bio-Products will revamp the closed ethanol plant to demonstrate its CTS
technology (see post).
Returning to the issue, Aemetis intends to
integrate Lanzatech’s patented microbial fermentation technology with a
gasification process to produce ethanol. And, it has just taken a step forward
in achieving this goal. The California-based company has signed an agreement with
exclusive rights for the use of the advanced gasification technology of InEnTec (see press
release). This is a key part of Aemetis’ strategy to produce cellulosic
ethanol from locally sourced biomass. Under the agreement, Aemetis has
predominant exclusive rights to use the InEnTec gasification equipment and
technology for cellulosic ethanol production until 2024.
Figure 1. Scheme of InEnTec’s PEM system
(extracted from InEnTec web page)
InEnTec’s Plasma Enhanced Melter® (PEM) system has
its origins in many decades of work in the development and integration of two
different technologies: plasma and glass melter. It builds upon extensive U.S.
Department of Energy sponsored research at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) and Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The
combined research funds expended on these technologies was well over $300
million. The PEM process breaks materials apart into their elemental components
and then transforms those elements into syngas. Any waste not converted into syngas
gets turned into Synglass, a vitrified substance with many industrial uses.
