Making biofuels out of rice straw - 10 million gallon cellulosic ethanol biorefinery
Earlier we mentioned German engineers who redesigned a 'circulating fluidized bed combustion' system that unlocks the vast potential of rice hulls, an abundant waste product - to be used in Vietnam.
Today news arrives of a company called Colusa Biomass Energy which is building a cellulosic ethanol plant with a capacity of 37.8 million litres (10 million gallons) and that will use rice straw as its feedstock.
Even though the biorefinery is to be located in a prime rice producing area of the Sacramento Valley in the United States where rice producers plant approximately 243,000 hectares (600,000 acres) of rice annually, the technology could obviously be applied in other rice producing countries as well. The primary feedstock for the second generation biofuels will be rice straw, which is a post-harvest residue with no commercial value to the rice farmer. Of the approximately 1.3 million tons of waste rice straw residue produced annually in the Sacramento Valley, the company will need 120,000 tons as its feedstock in the production of the 10 million gallons of ethanol.
In an earlier post, we presented an overview of different biomass residues from agriculture, and the 'residue-to-product' ratio of rice varies between 0.42 and 3.96. This means that for each ton of rice grain produced, between 420 and 3960 kilograms of straw waste becomes available. In 2005, 618 million tons of rice were produced in the world (FAOstat). Many other agricultural biomass residues can be used as second generation biofuel feedstocks, so the potential is indeed enormous.
The plant is based on patented and proprietary technologies [abstract] that converts waste biomass into ethanol for use in transportation fuels. It is important to note that the technology takes nothing from the food stream but only consumes waste biomass such as straws, wood chips, forest slash and orchards trimmings.
The Colusa process ferments both 5-carbon and 6-carbon sugars to ethanol using an existing closed-loop fermentation system employing genetically-engineered thermophilic bacteria—Bacillus stearothermophilus—developed by Agrol, Ltd. in the UK. Colusa developed its own set of physical and chemical treatments to release the sugars from the lignocellulosic material for fermentation.
Besides liquid fuels, Colusa will produce, silica/sodium oxide and lignin from the waste biomass, including the waste rice straw, waste rice hulls and other cellulosics. Silica/sodium oxide is a widely used ingredient with applications in the paper industry, by detergent and soap producers and for the production of gels, catalysts and zeolytes. It is because the production of second generation biofuels is integrated with the production of specialty biochemicals that Coluse can genuinly use the words 'biorefinery of the new generation' to describe its project.
[Entry ends here].
ethanol :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: biorefinery :: cellulosic :: rice ::
Today news arrives of a company called Colusa Biomass Energy which is building a cellulosic ethanol plant with a capacity of 37.8 million litres (10 million gallons) and that will use rice straw as its feedstock.
Even though the biorefinery is to be located in a prime rice producing area of the Sacramento Valley in the United States where rice producers plant approximately 243,000 hectares (600,000 acres) of rice annually, the technology could obviously be applied in other rice producing countries as well. The primary feedstock for the second generation biofuels will be rice straw, which is a post-harvest residue with no commercial value to the rice farmer. Of the approximately 1.3 million tons of waste rice straw residue produced annually in the Sacramento Valley, the company will need 120,000 tons as its feedstock in the production of the 10 million gallons of ethanol.
In an earlier post, we presented an overview of different biomass residues from agriculture, and the 'residue-to-product' ratio of rice varies between 0.42 and 3.96. This means that for each ton of rice grain produced, between 420 and 3960 kilograms of straw waste becomes available. In 2005, 618 million tons of rice were produced in the world (FAOstat). Many other agricultural biomass residues can be used as second generation biofuel feedstocks, so the potential is indeed enormous.
The plant is based on patented and proprietary technologies [abstract] that converts waste biomass into ethanol for use in transportation fuels. It is important to note that the technology takes nothing from the food stream but only consumes waste biomass such as straws, wood chips, forest slash and orchards trimmings.
The Colusa process ferments both 5-carbon and 6-carbon sugars to ethanol using an existing closed-loop fermentation system employing genetically-engineered thermophilic bacteria—Bacillus stearothermophilus—developed by Agrol, Ltd. in the UK. Colusa developed its own set of physical and chemical treatments to release the sugars from the lignocellulosic material for fermentation.
Besides liquid fuels, Colusa will produce, silica/sodium oxide and lignin from the waste biomass, including the waste rice straw, waste rice hulls and other cellulosics. Silica/sodium oxide is a widely used ingredient with applications in the paper industry, by detergent and soap producers and for the production of gels, catalysts and zeolytes. It is because the production of second generation biofuels is integrated with the production of specialty biochemicals that Coluse can genuinly use the words 'biorefinery of the new generation' to describe its project.
[Entry ends here].
ethanol :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: biorefinery :: cellulosic :: rice ::
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