Celtic Renewables to build plant for demonstrating production of biobutanol from whisky residue

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Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.
Celtic Renewables Ltd, a Scottish start-up, has secured permission from Falkirk Council to build a demonstrator plant in Grangemouth. The company has developed a ground-breaking application for producing biobutanol based on the traditional ABE fermentation. Working closely with Tullibardine Distillery in Perthshire, Celtic Renewables is helping to derive value from the production residues of the malt whisky industry in Scotland (currently produces almost 750,000 tons of draff and 2 billion litres of pot ale) by converting it into advanced biofuel and other high value low carbon products.

Celtic Renewables has established a new public limited company (Celtic Renewables Grangemouth PLC) specifically to deliver this plant and has launched a funding campaign seeking to raise 5.25 M£ through a p2p investment platform: Abundance Investment.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the process of Celtic Renewables (extracted from the web site of the company)

Project factsheet
Location
Two-acre site in Grangemouth (Falkirk, Scotland, UK).
Feedstock
Whisky industry residues (draff and pot ale).
Product and production capacity
Over 0.5 Ml/y of n-butanol.
Technology
ABE fermentation. The outputs from the fermentation of draff and pot ale are butanol, acetone, ethanol, animal feed and gases (hydrogen and carbon dioxide).
It uses a strain of bacteria from the Clostridia Class.
Employment
The plant will create 25 jobs in the local area.
Timeline
The construction is due to begin in early 2018.

The complete information about this news: press release.
More information about biobutanol: Biobutanol biorefineries.

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