Fabrication of front-end fermentation inaugurates construction of 250,000 gallon-per-year facility to produce advanced biofuels and bio-based chemicals

Reported by David Hill, Executive Editor

LAKEWOOD - ZeaChem Inc., a developer of biorefineries for the conversion of renewable biomass into fuels and chemicals, today announced it has begun construction of its semi-works scale facility. The company is working with Hazen Research, Inc. of Golden to construct the critical first step of the biorefinery fermentation process.

Colorado Energy News spoke with Jim Imbler, the company’s President and CEO about the latest news and what it means going forward.

“ZeaChem is meeting its deployment milestones and moving forward to advanced biofuels and bio-based chemicals production,” Imbler tells CEN. “We have a dedicated energy feedstock supplier, we have raised necessary capital, and we have completed the initial design package and are finalizing the detailed engineering and design package. Initiating construction of this front-end fermentation unit operation demonstrates that ZeaChem is accelerating deployment of its unique hybrid biorefining technology.”

The front-end fermentation unit scales up production of the naturally occurring bacteria, called an acetogen, which ZeaChem uses in its fermentation process. Acetogens are highly robust and, unlike yeast, produce no carbon dioxide (CO2) during the fermentation process, enabling ZeaChem to realize a significant efficiency and yield advantage. ZeaChem has successfully produced acetogens at the lab scale for over 1,000 fermentation trials of sugars as well as hydrolyzate derived from cellulosic biomass. The facility will have capacity to produce 250,000 gallons of biofuel per year.

HAZAN’S PIVOTAL ROLE

Hazen Research, an industrial research and development firm, will construct and host the initial process unit and provide infrastructure and operations support. ZeaChem is constructing the semi-works scale biorefinery utilizing skid mounted design, which allows construction of individual process units more quickly in fabrication shops. The skids act like modular building blocks, each approximately the size of a cargo shipping container, and will be integrated together at the final biorefinery site, proposed in Boardman, Oregon.

“I’m an old operations guy,” Imbler tells Colorado Energy News. “Everything to me is about reducing operational risk and process problems. Working with Hazen enables us to accelerate our fermentation schedule and minimize the installation process. It’s something we couldn’t duplicate at our own facility.”

Key advantages of skid mounted design include the ability to optimize unit operations earlier in the process and the flexibility to bolt on and phase in additional skids as the biorefinery is deployed in stages. These steps significantly reduce the risk of individual process operations and ultimate integration.

ON TRACK IN A TOUGH MARKET

ZeaChem’s progress is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak year for biomass, biofuels-centered businesses.

“It starts with our bug - it will eat anything,” says Imbler. He also cites the growing advantages of dedicated, sustainable energy crops like the woody biomass that ZeaChem utilizes. “It’s dense and gets huge yields.”

The company’s flexible approach to the marketplace is another advantage.

“We have to be flexible when we look at the market,” Imbler says. “We use multiple feedstocks and our processes have high efficiencies, which gives us options when it comes to partnering with companies in the chemical and fuel markets.”

Imbler spoints out there is nothing special about the technology his company employs. “Our concept isn’t about new technology - in fact, our processes incorporate off-the-shelf components that have been around for years. We’re just rearranging them, like Lego blocks. Our goal is making money.”

“But let me stress that all our processes ferment without producing CO2,” he emphatically adds.

ZeaChem intends to scale to a commercial biorefinery upon successful operations at the semi-works scale facility. The core technology of such a facility will come online in 2010.