TMO celebrates its first birthday
UK-based second generation technology producer TMO has been fairly quiet up until now.
But now the company’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration unit is one year old it is starting to make some noise.
TMO’s provides a technology that first generation ethanol producers using corn can bolt on to their plants to process the sugar in by-product dried distillers grains (DDGs) and boost production levels by up to 15%.
Ethanol plants currently use large amount of energy drying DDGS before selling it as fodder for livestock. The TMO process uses the material while still wet, allowing substantial energy savings as well as additional output, raising profit margins by 50-60%.
TMO has patented a heat-loving microorganism, derived from bacteria found in a compost heap, which has a broad and rapid appetite for the longer-chain sugars found in woodier materials than traditional food crops.
The company is also experimenting with other feedstocks such as municipal waste or wheat straw but believes it will be several years until ethanol produced entirely from second generation feedstocks is a reality. TMO’s technology makes cellulosic ethanol production possible in the interim period.
Around 25 US ethanol plants have expressed an interest in the process and four of them have conducted full-scale industrial trials.
Although the company expects to license the technology in the next few months the build time is between 12 and 18 months.
But TMO does not see any potential any closer to home. TMO’s demonstration unit in the UK operates 24 hours a day to display and test the methods of feedstock preparation, pre-treatment and sugar release that convert the feedstock into a beer on an industrial scale.
And although it could produce, market and distribute ethanol, demand is insufficient for the end product and it is not cost-effective, so instead the company simply disposes of the beer.
‘There is no prospect for investing in the biofuel market in the UK at the moment,’ says Hamish Curran, TMO’s CEO. ‘A scaling back of British government targets for biofuels had put the industry in a go slow mode.’
But now the company’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration unit is one year old it is starting to make some noise.
TMO’s provides a technology that first generation ethanol producers using corn can bolt on to their plants to process the sugar in by-product dried distillers grains (DDGs) and boost production levels by up to 15%.
Ethanol plants currently use large amount of energy drying DDGS before selling it as fodder for livestock. The TMO process uses the material while still wet, allowing substantial energy savings as well as additional output, raising profit margins by 50-60%.
TMO has patented a heat-loving microorganism, derived from bacteria found in a compost heap, which has a broad and rapid appetite for the longer-chain sugars found in woodier materials than traditional food crops.
The company is also experimenting with other feedstocks such as municipal waste or wheat straw but believes it will be several years until ethanol produced entirely from second generation feedstocks is a reality. TMO’s technology makes cellulosic ethanol production possible in the interim period.
Around 25 US ethanol plants have expressed an interest in the process and four of them have conducted full-scale industrial trials.
Although the company expects to license the technology in the next few months the build time is between 12 and 18 months.
But TMO does not see any potential any closer to home. TMO’s demonstration unit in the UK operates 24 hours a day to display and test the methods of feedstock preparation, pre-treatment and sugar release that convert the feedstock into a beer on an industrial scale.
And although it could produce, market and distribute ethanol, demand is insufficient for the end product and it is not cost-effective, so instead the company simply disposes of the beer.
‘There is no prospect for investing in the biofuel market in the UK at the moment,’ says Hamish Curran, TMO’s CEO. ‘A scaling back of British government targets for biofuels had put the industry in a go slow mode.’
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