(Proterro) The biofeedstock company also validates low fabrication cost and completes preliminary design, layout, and cost estimate for demonstration-scale plant.
– Proterro, Inc., the only biofeedstock company that actually makes sucrose instead of extracting it from crops or deconstructing cellulosic materials, has met key new development milestones.
“We scaled up our novel photobioreactor design and conducted independent functionality tests that confirmed the unit’s robustness,” said Proterro CEO Kef Kasdin. “The modular photobioreactors, which are made from off-the-shelf materials, including polyethylene, can withstand category 1 hurricane winds,” she explained, adding, “Because of the materials used and the innovative design, we also have been able to validate low fabrication costs.”
Kasdin also said that Proterro is in the process of commissioning a pilot plant in Florida and—with the help of top-ranking U.S. engineering, architectural and management services company Middough Inc.—has completed a preliminary design, layout and associated cost estimate for a demonstration-scale plant. Using CO2, sunlight and water, Proterro lowers the cost of sugar production through a novel, scalable biosynthetic process that integrates its patented, highly productive microorganism with its unique, patent-pending photobioreactor. This process yields a fermentation-ready sucrose stream, rather than a mixture of sugars, allowing simple, low-cost downstream processing.
Key features of Proterro’s patent-pending photobioreactor are:
Collapsible low-cost polyethylene cylinder
Made from off-the-shelf materials
Naturally sheds rain and snow
Favorable aerodynamic shape for wind loading
Patented cyanobacteria grow on vertical fabric panels
Water and nutrients drain by gravity on panels
CO2-augmented air, or flue gas inflates cylinder
Natural low point for condensate drain
Can be UV stabilized
“Unlike typical algae cultivation approaches,” said Kasdin, “we grow our high-sugarproducing cyanobacteria on a composite fabric substrate enclosed in our photobioreactor, which optimizesthe organisms’accessto light and surrounds themwith their carbon-dioxide feedstock. Water and nutrients are trickled into the photobioreactor, creating a controlled cultivation environment.”
Proterro’s unique sugar-making process removes the price volatility that comes with crop-based feedstocks and eliminates the complex and costly steps required to produce cellulosic sugars derived from biomass. The result is an economically stable, fermentation-ready sugar feedstock for the scalable, affordable production of a variety of commercial scale fuels and chemicals through standard industrial fermentation methods. READ MORE