by Chris Hanson (Ethanol Producer Magazine) American Process applies forestry products know-how to cellulosic conversion.
Though a relative newcomer to the ethanol world, Georgia-based American Process Inc. is no stranger in the forest products industry. The company has demonstrated its consulting expertise in 500-some projects, logging more than 2 million work hours of project experience in nearly two decades. Founded in 1995 by Theodora Retsina as an engineering consulting firm, API has been increasing its presence in the cellulosic ethanol market with its bolt-on and stand-alone technologies utilizing woody biomass and crop residues to produce cellulosic sugars.
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API’s GreenPower Plus and AVAP (which was originally developed as American value-added pulping) technologies are utilized to extract sugars that may be used to produce biofuels and biobased chemicals from a variety of feedstocks. The GreenPower Plus technology first treats biomass, including hardwood, softwood or bagasse, through a hot water extraction process. The hemicelluloses are removed from the wood in this process and then treated with acid to form sugars. Last, the sugars are concentrated until it can be converted into biochemicals or fermented into cellulosic ethanol by organisms able to process C5 and C6 sugars. Any residual solid material containing lignin and cellulose is then processed to create pellets, combusted in a boiler or used for pulp and paper applications. Retsina, CEO of API, describes GreenPower Plus as a bolt-on technology for plants that are already aggregating biomass, such as a first-generation sugar-to-ethanol plant.
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AVAP is API’s stand-alone technology that converts biomass into sugars for cellulosic ethanol or biochemical production. It uses sulfur dioxide and ethanol pretreatment chemistry to extract hemicelluloses and lignin, Nelson explains. The lignin and hemicelluloses are processed by autohydrolysis. The hemicellulose is used to produce sugars while the lignin is transported to a boiler to generate energy for the facility. Meanwhile, the separated cellulose is either sold as a coproduct or is processed through enzymatic hydrolysis to produce cellulosic sugars, which can be converted along with the hemicellulose sugars into biochemicals or biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol. READ MORE