Reactor purchase ‘key’ to bioethanol production claims US sugar producer

Danish renewable energy company BioGasol is to provide reactor technology to US-based cellulosic sugar producer Sweetwater Energy (SE).

SE will purchase a pre-treatment reactor, designed by BioGasol to treat lignocellulosic feedstock before fermentation, as part of a decentralised sugar manufacturing unit for use by Ace Ethanol, a corn ethanol producer.

‘Our use of BioGasol’s technology in a commercial ethanol plant shows introducing lignocellulose-derived sugars into existing biofuel production processes can be low risk and economically feasible,’ says SE CEO Arunas Chesonis.

‘We share a philosophy that smaller, decentralised pretreatment facilities are the key at this stage to making cellulosic biofuels and biochemicals work, and such agreements like this pave the way for the large-scale production of fuel and raw materials for the chemical industry from cellulosic feedstock.’

BioGasol claims the combined unit will generate fermentable sugars for cellulosic ethanol at the Ace plant for up to 16 years.