by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Last week we reported that Toray Industries has teamed with Mitsui to produce cellulosic sugars from bagasse leftover from the sugar production process at Thai sugar mills.
The companies will invest up to $51 million to build one of the world’s largest bagasse-based cellulosic sugar plants. Producing 1,400 tons of cellulosic sugar annually that will be used as feedstock for ethanol, it will also produce 450 tons of oligosaccharides and 250 tons of polyphenol for foods and fodder when it comes online in August 2018.
So, how do you make industrial biotechnologies work in Asia?
Bottom line, you can’t exclusively use expensive first-gen sugars to make products like succinic acid, or PBT, or PET, without monetizing the reduction in carbon emissions. The net yield of PET (which doesn’t contain any oxygen) from C6 sugars (which are roughly 40% oxygen by weight), is generally too low to compete on price with $50 oil.
So, time to look at cellulosic sugars. There. you have three concerns.
1. What will I pay for it?
2. Will I have to aggregate it?
3. Will my process work with it?
If you answered “a lot”, “yes and “not very well” to the above, you’re not going to be successful in the advanced bioeconomy for some time. You need positive responses for at least two out of the three.
Sustainable, available, affordable: pick two out of three (usually)
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Which brings us, next, to sugarcane bagasse.
So long as you can make it work in your process, it’s aggregated and essentially the entire cost of sugarcane processing is already allocated to sugar production, so it’s cheap. There may be limitations on availability of bagasse is combusted to proved power for the refinery.
So, it’s mighty attractive as a feedstock, and Thailand is the world’s fourth-largest producer of sugarcane and the government is pro-biotechnology as a driver of economic growth. So, it makes sense.
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In December 2010, we reported that Mitsui Engineering teamed with local Sime Darby Research Sdn. Berhad to build and operate a demonstration plant to produce ethanol from palm oil Empty Fruit Bunches using a combination of Mitsui’s technology and Inbicon’s second generation biomass refinery technology. The facility will process 1.25 metric tons of fruit bunches per day.
Later that year, we reported in June 2011 that LanzaTech signed a MOU with Mitsui Global Strategic Studies Institute, to introduce LanzaTech’s proprietary gas fermentation technology throughout the Mitsui Group.
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Toray has had a long-term but somewhat more focused interest in the advanced bioeconomy. They’ve been a long-term partner of Gevo, dating back to Gevo’s IPO. And they have proved successful production of their downstream products using Genomatica’s BDO in 2013.
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Bottom line, Mitsui and Toray see an opportunity in becoming more vertically integrated in terms of aggregating feedstock, rather than waiting for the likes of Comet and Renmatix to reach scale and get to Asia. READ MORE
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