Cobalt and NREL verify advanced biocatalyst

Cobalt Technologies has successfully demonstrated of one of its advanced biocatalysts in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which forms part of the US Department of Energy. Cobalt completed multiple fermentation campaigns in a 9,000 litre fermenter, exceeding the target yield and other performance metrics for a commercial scale facility. The demonstration showed the biocatalyst's ability to convert non-food based substrates into renewable n-butanol and resulted in high sugar conversion and high yields of butanol.

'Ultimately, we're showing performance is achievable at commercial scale across our technology platform,' says Bob Mayer, CEO of Cobalt Technologies.

Testing took place at the NREL Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility (IBRF) in the National Bioenergy Center facilities in Golden, Colorado, which is designed for large-scale fermentation and downstream processing.

The advanced biocatalyst fermentation demonstration confirms that the Cobalt process to produce renewable butanol is 40-60% less expensive than production of petroleum-based butanol using the traditional oxo-alcohol process.

Cobalt's technology was tested using batch processes to fully demonstrate the flexibility of the technology. The butanol produced during this demonstration will be sent to several customers for product certification. Company-specific certification will allow Cobalt's renewable n-butanol to be incorporated into existing chemical-based products like paints, solvents or plastics.