VERBIO to transform DuPont’s Iowa cellulosic ethanol plant into a renewable natural gas facility

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Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.

DuPont Industrial Biosciences (DuPont) and VERBIO North America Corporation (VNA), US subsidiary of German bioenergy company VERBIO Vereinigte BioEnergie AG (VERBIO), have reached terms for VNA to acquire DuPont’s cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada (Iowa, USA) and a portion of its corn stover inventory.
Press release: “VERBIO to acquire DuPont’s Nevada, Iowa-based cellulosic ethanol plant”, 8/11/2018.
Related post: “Official opening of the cellulosic ethanol biorefinery of Dupont in Iowa”, 27/10/2015.

DuPont officially opened the biorefinery on October 2015 and reported its plans to sell it two years after. Following its merger with Dow in 2017, the company announced a strategic shift within the cellulosic biofuels business and began to seek a buyer for the plant. Currently, it continues to participate in the overall biofuels market offering enzymes and engineered yeast solutions that improve yield and productivity.

Figure 1. Cellulosic ethanol plant of DuPont in Iowa (extracted from DuPont website). It has been sold to VNA.

VNA intends to install the equipment required to produce renewable natural gas (RNG) from corn stover and other cellulosic crop residues at the site. The existing facility offers excellent infrastructure to construct the RNG plant and there is a solid base of local farmers from whom to procure the raw materials. VNA is working on plans to start construction of the RNG plant in spring 2019 and begin commercial production of renewable transportation fuel by summer 2020.

VERBIO is running four plants in German producing around 27 million gallons of RNG, 140 million gallons of biodiesel and 87 million gallons of ethanol per year. This would be VERBIO’s third production facility devoted to this cellulosic technology. In 2014, the company started up the first one in Schwedt (Germany) and the second one in Pinnow (Germany) is currently being commissioned.

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