Cellulosic Ethanol Proesa™
Success in cellulosic ethanol constitutes a feat with which Biochemtex, affiliate of the Mossi & Ghisolfi Group, challenged the chemistry world, already back in 2006.
With a total investment exceeding 150M€ and over 7 years dedicated to research and development within the R&D; center of Rivalta Scrivia in Italy, Biochemtex created
Proesa™, a socalled “second generation” technology, which unlocks access to the fermentable sugars present in lignocellulosic biomass, for production of
transportation fuels and other chemicals, thus lowering their GHG emissions, at competitive costs compared to fossil sources (i.e. oil and natural gas).
In the years, several companies and institutions succeeded in generating bioethanol from non-food biomass at Lab scale, but faced intolerably high costs to upgrade such processes to an industrial scale.
On the contrary, Proesa™ enables production costs which are absolutely market-competitive.
Proesa™ Key Success Factors:
- Proesa™ is cost-competitive even with oil at 70 USD per barrel, a price which today is basically unattainable.
- One metric ton of fuel grade ethanol needs about 4.5 to 5.0 metric tons of dry biomass
- Reduced capital investment required (simple process, non-sophisticated plant design)
- Positive economic performance even at modest scale.
- Cash cost of fermentable sugars: 0.2 €/kg.
- Cash cost of ethanol: 0.3 €/liter.
- Energy content of lignin co-product entirely self-sustains plant operation.
- Competitive on a global scale, without need for subsidies.
- Maximum flexibility in use of feedstock: dedicated varieties such as Arundo donax (energy crops), agricultural residues, woody biomass, bagasse, etc.
To achieve such performance, several agronomic studies have been carried out through the years, along with related logistics modeling and continuous experimental data gathering at pilot scale, on the Proesa™ plant in Rivalta Scrivia (AL), which can pretreat up to 1 ton of biomass per day.
Thanks to Proesa™ it is possible to configure the biorefinery of the future; already today the facility established by Biochemtex in Crescentino(VC), which is producing cellulosic ethanol, is a concrete example of how a first of a kind biorefinery model can come to life.
For more information on Proesa™ and its features: click Here.