BioPolyGen

   B I O P O L Y G E N  T E C H N O L O G Y –

A RIGHT CHOICE IN FUTURE BIOREFINERIES

    Modern Concept and Verification Test Results  are of  May 2010

With the recent jump and current badly predictable behaviour of prices for imported oil and a climate change of paramount concern around the globe, first generation (corn) bioethanol assumes an increasingly important role in the national energy mixes and in strategies intended to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Under these conditions the U.S. corn bioethanol industry has increased annual production capacity by the end of 2007 to 6.5 billion gallons per year and come close to 9 billions in 2008, which far exceeds a new Renewable Fuel Standard for 2008 installed by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

And, along with the first generation ethanol plants springing up from America’s cornfields, a technology revolution, that promises to dramatically expand the base for ethanol production, got under way. Municipal, forest, and agriculture wastes will be commercially viable before long as much cheaper and environmentally-friendly feedstocks for the second generation ethanol. However, on this pathway many technological barriers in processing the ligno-cellulosic materials (LCM) should be overcome.

In these circumstances the BIOPOLYGEN (BPG) Team of the NEWPOLYGEN -a research arm of the MEEC Group (Israel) was initiating the adaptation and succeeding commercialization of its simple and high efficient BIOPOLYGEN technology for processing the LCM with use of the proprietary inorganic catalysts instead of the expensive enzymes, problematic acids and solvents. Such a catalyst creates a required environment in the new solubilization and hydrolysis processes and constitutes an integral and important part of the valuable hydrolysis by-products.

A new technology has been previously (in the middle 90s) developed for thermo-catalytic hydrolysis of the residues from forestry and agriculture and proven in the bench-scale treatment of softwood sawdust and during a full-scale field production of the high-quality supplements to ruminants feed from the poultry losses.

Nowadays, the BPG Team is intended to adapt the BIOPOLYGEN technology to production of the second generation bioethanol and integrate it with co-production of the valuable by-products, like the slow release organic-mineral fertilizers, feeding stuff, and/or bio-based chemicals and substitutes for petroleum-based feedstocks, in the local small-scale biorefineries.

It is expected that the low-cost and versatile BIOPOLYGEN technology could provoke a strong competition to the presently employed first generation technologies, based on treatment of cultivated cultures (corn, sugar-cane, et al.), and to the new technologies being presently developed for processing the LCM with use of the acids, solvents or/and enzymes. Contrary to these technologies, based on an intensive use of subsidies, BIOPOLYGEN is planned to be based on a self-repayment basis with a high marketing profit rate.

At the first stage of technology adaptation, an experimental verification of the ability to reach a reasonably high simple sugars yield in the developed hydrolysis process has been carried out by the BPG Team. During the bench-scale tests the very high biomass solubilization efficiencies were demonstrated. In the single-stage process they amounted to 89 – 90% for hemicellulose, 80 – 82% for cellulose, and 83 – 85% for lignin, whereas in the multi-stage process the total LCM solubilization efficiencies have reached 95% for softwood specimen and 82% for corn stover one.

The total saccharification efficiency, demonstrated during the verification procedure, has accounted for 58 – 59% and significantly exceeded one (35 – 45%) generally reported by many developers of one-stage dilute-acid hydrolysis. As yet, the simple one-stage BIOPOLYGEN process ranks below the more complicated and expensive NREL two-stage dilute acid hydrolysis process in total saccharification efficiency (58 – 59% against 68%). However, contrary to the long-standing history of NREL process development, the mentioned promising test results have been achieved at the first try, avoiding any preceding expensive trial-and-error process modifications. It is expected that the achieved level of saccharification efficiency will be significantly exceeded due to the planned technology improvements.

The extremely encouraging results of the verification tests became an adequate background for elaboration of a conceptual design for the BIOPOLYGEN refinery at the second stage of technology adaptation. As a subject of the conceptual design, the softwood to ethanol plant has been chosen and studied. This facilitates the comparison of the BIOPOLYGEN technology with the best available technologies, and, in particular, with the NREL technology, formed a basis of the similar plant developed by the Merrick Company. An energy consumption of the biorefinery proposed by the BPG Team is characterized by a relatively low power-to-steam ratio, resulting in possibility for sale of power excess to the grid from the own combined heat and power (CHP) plant. The third co-product of the developed biorefinery is a slow release combined (mineral-organic and/or organic-mineral) fertilizer, which is produced from the by-products of the hydrolysis and distillation-evaporation steps. The BPG Team’s previous experience indicates also that such the local biorefineries could be designed for production of an additional co-product (feeding stuff) and equipped with a novel low energy intensive process, offering by the Group for ethanol recovery route.

The conceptual design accomplished includes: general process designs, heat and material balances, simplified process flow diagrams, equipment selection, and the rough capital and operating cost estimates. The costs and anticipated revenues are presented together with accompanying sensitivity analyses for varying capital investment volumes, costs for raw materials, selling-prices for ethanol, fertilizers and electricity, and biorefinery capacity.

The results of performed feasibility study are the well-documented confirmation of an economical attractiveness of the BIOPOLYGEN refinery concept. As shown in the conceptual design, at this stage of technology development the main revenues during refinery operation are created from sales of the ethanol and combined fertilizers. The latter may amount up to 75 – 85% of the total annual sales volume and provide a drastic decrease in the simple payback period from 5.5 – 7.1 years, specific to the NREL-Merrick project, down to 2.4 – 2.9 years. By this means the stable and profitable operation of the BIOPOLYGEN refineries can be ensured just now without any governmental subsidies and tax allowances. In addition, even a possible difference in the designed and actual ethanol yields (caused, for example, by the known difficulties in C5 sugars fermentation) cannot significantly reduce a profitability of the offered biorefinery.

In the course of sensitivity analysis, a favourable correlation between the costs of the catalyst components and fertilizer prices, typical of the current markets, has been taken into account. As a rule, an increase in one factor is accompanied by a rise in another. This rules out a strong effect of the catalyst costs on the biorefinery economics and permits its long-term planning and prediction to be made. The conducted sensitivity analysis has revealed also a reduced impact of the capital investments on the economics of the offered biorefinery, making possible to extend all findings of the present work to the small-scale local biorefineries, which, as is well known, are characterized by the enhanced specific installed costs.

The investigations conducted within the framework of the feasibility study have confirmed the results of sensitivity analysis and provide strong evidence that the developed small-to-medium BIOPOLYGEN refineries will significantly outperform the known medium-scale second generation ethanol plants being presently developed in the USA and Europe. Their superiority is clearly demonstrated in the wide ranges of the local biorefinery ethanol capacities (from 1.5MGY up to 15MGY) and possible feedstock costs (from -$22/BDT up to $66/BDT) in respect to the specific capital investments, production costs and simple payback period.

On the other hand, a large-scale biorefinery plant may be best suited to realization of the mentioned multi-stage BIOPOLYGEN hydrolysis process, characterized by an extremely high LCM solubilization efficiency and providing the generation of semi-products for further their processing into the bio-based chemicals and substitutes for petroleum-based feedstocks. This may result in a corresponding and favourable change in the volume and structure of biorefinery annual revenues.

A limited volume of the allocated finances has bounded the technology verification and feasibility study by the mentioned above bench-scale experiments and conceptual design of one BIOPOLYGEN refinery alternative only. Nonetheless, the performed research has revealed the decisive technical advantages and much higher profitability of a new technology as compared to the rival those. This creates a well argued basis for the accelerated completion of the new technology development, its pilot demonstration and succeeding licensing in the biorefinery markets together with the interested Strategic Partner.

As a whole, there is a keen demand for significant improvements in the known cellulosic ethanol technologies, making possible to place its large-scale commercial production on the agenda. The development of cellulosic ethanol industry in the US is supported by many governmental subsidies and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which mandates 21 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, of which 16 billion gallons must come from cellulosic ethanol. On February 28, 2007, U.S. DOE announced up to $385 million for six biorefinery projects that when fully operational are expected to produce more than 130 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year. On May 1, 2007, U.S. DOE announced a funding opportunity for $200 million over five years (FY’07 – FY’11) to support the development of small scale integrated biorefinery demonstration facilities, employing ligno-cellulosic feedstocks for the production of a combination of liquid transportation fuel(s), bio-based chemicals, bio-based products and substitutes for petroleum-based feedstocks.

Finally, on June 26, 2007 U.S. DOE announced that it will invest up to $375 million in three new Bioenergy Research Centers, intended to accelerate basic research in the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels and advance President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Initiative, which seeks to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 20 percent within ten years and make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012. This Initiative has been recently supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) signed by the new U.S. President Barack Obama on February 17, 2009.

BIOPOLYGEN technology being developed by the BPG Team is based on a new approach to the pretreatment and hydrolysis of the LCM, and once supplemented by the new methods of ethanol and by-product recovery route, it can offer an adequate response to the required breakthrough in the current cellulosic ethanol developments.

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