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Enzymes To Ethanol
By Mr Ethanol | January 29, 2008
Checkbiotech:
The first ethanol plant in the U.S. using enzymes to make ethanol from plant scraps should be built here by March 31, company officials said Friday during a site tour. expecting construction on plant to be complete by March 31.
Verenium, a Massachusetts based company, built a small plant in Jennings in 2006 to test new ways to make cellulosic ethanol from plant matter and farm scraps like sugarcane bagasse (pulpy fiber) and wood chips. It’s one of a few pilot plants in the U.S. acting like chemistry labs in search of the cellulosic breakthrough.
Finding a cheap way to break down large amounts of plant matter into fuel would solve a lot of ethanol arguments in the U.S., and improve the ethanol’s long-term chances with consumers.
Verenium says it’s closer than most, with branches in Florida and California researching and engineering an ideal enzyme to break up the cellulose into simple sugars, and then into alcohol. Its Jennings site is where everything comes together for testing.
“Now I’ll be able to say (to my kids) that I was part of a team that built the first cellulosic ethanol facility in the world, and we’ll change the way the world collects its energy,” said Richard Steiger, Verenium’s vice president of engineering and construction in Jennings. Carry on reading…
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