St1 completes the construction of a pilot plant to produce ethanol from cassava waste in Thailand
Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.
Early last year, St1 and Ubon Bio Ethanol (the largest cassava ethanol
producer in Thailand) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch a pilot
project to produce bioethanol from cassava waste using Etanolix® technology
(see blog
post, 26/1/2017).
St1 has already completed the construction of the
Etanolix® pilot plant at the starch and ethanol site of Ubon Bio Ethanol in
Ubon Ratchathani (see press
release, 3/4/2018). The facility will be operated for a year in several
starch factories to test different environments, conditions and seasonal
changes. The pilot phase is essential to finalize the concept for a full-scale
ethanol production plant into an investment proposal. St1 has founded a
subsidiary in Thailand, St1 Renewable Energy Thailand Ltd, to run the piloting
and R&D of the production process.
Figure 1. Opening of the Etanolix® pilot plant
at the starch and ethanol site of Ubon Bio Ethanol in Ubon Ratchathani (extracted
from the Ubon Bio Ethanol website)
The aim of the project is to start the construction
of the first commercial plant after the pilot phase. The amount of cassava
waste generated by Thailand’s largest starch production plants would enable the
construction of units producing 10-30 million liters of ethanol per year. As it
was mentioned in the previous post, the final goal is to build up to 20
Etanolix® plants in Thailand, with a total production capacity of 400 million
liters of ethanol per year.