Cargill and Virent to jointly evaluate the use of corn dextrose to produce biobased fuels and chemicals

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Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF. 

Cargill and Virent, Inc. (Virent) are working together to evaluate the use of Cargill’s corn dextrose as a feedstock to Virent’s BioForming® technology for the production of “drop-in” low-carbon biobased fuels and chemicals. 

Figure 1. Virent’s BioForming® platform (taken from the company website) 

Virent’s BioForming® technology uses sugars found in plants as a feedstock to produce drop-in renewable gasoline and jet fuel, as well as lower carbon biobased chemicals, including bio-paraxylene, a key raw material for producing 100% renewable and recyclable biopolyester. The sugars may originate from any plant source, including first generation crops such as corn, sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as lignocellulosic materials derived from wood, corn stover, bagasse and other sources. 

Upon completion of the study, Virent will use the findings to evaluate options for scale-up and the development of a first commercial plant utilizing the BioForming® technology. The long-term objective is to use commercially available feedstocks today as a bridge to next-generation lignocellulosic feedstocks in the future.

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