Raízen selects Sulzer for next generation biofuel production

Brazil’s largest producer of ethanol from sugarcane waste is embarking on a major wave of investment.
With plans to build 20 second-generation processing facilities over the next seven years, Raízen has picked Sulzer as a key technology supplier.
Ethanol produced from the fermentation of crop wastes has become the world’s most widely used and important biofuel.
In many markets worldwide, it has become standard practice to mix a fraction of ethanol into gasoline, helping to reduce the carbon footprint of road transport.
Energy companies have plans to go further too, creating fully renewable biofuels that can be used as drop-in replacements for their fossil-based predecessors.
Since 2022, for example, Shell has been using bioethanol as a key ingredient in the 100% renewable race fuel that it supplies to the NTT IndyCar series.
Much of that ethanol is made by Raízen, a joint venture between Shell and Brazilian sugar and energy conglomerate Cosan, which produces around 2.5 billion litres of the material from sugarcane in a network of plants across the country.
Now, with global demand for bioethanol expected to grow at over 14% per year, the company is expanding its production capacity with the introduction of new second-generation ethanol (E2G) technology.