First product bot­tling at the Leuna demo plant

The con­struc­tion of the Leuna demo plant was com­pleted at the end of 2016, and the first months of 2017 were devoted to the gradu­al start-up of the unit. The fer­ment­a­tion unit was the first sec­tion star­ted-up and the fer­ment­a­tion per­form­ances pre­vi­ously obtained on the pilot plant loc­ated at Pomacle-Bazan­court, near Reims in France, were rep­lic­ated and even exceeded. Until recently, the renew­able isob­utene pro­duced by this unit, was sent dir­ectly to the flare to be incin­er­ated as oper­a­tion of the puri­fic­a­tion unit and the filling sta­tion (bottle and con­tain­er filling) had yet to be star­ted-up. The month of August 2017 was devoted to site main­ten­ance. The demo plant restar­ted in Septem­ber, and an ini­tial test involving the full tech­nic­al pro­cess: fer­ment­a­tion, puri­fic­a­tion, pack­aging — was suc­cess­fully car­ried out and the first bottle was filled. Rick Bock­rath, VP for Chem­ic­al Engin­eer­ing at Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, states: ​“I joined Glob­al Bioen­er­gies at the begin­ning of 2012 with the object­ive of tak­ing the pro­cess from the labor­at­ory, by cre­at­ing a com­mer­cial pro­cess vis­ion and then design­ing and build­ing a pilot unit in France and then a demo unit in Ger­many to fully demon­strate the microbe’s cap­ab­il­it­ies. This has now been achieved! Today we have reached a key com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion mile­stone for Glob­al Bioen­er­gies.” Ales Bulc, CEO of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies GmbH, adds: ​“Build­ing this demo unit, €11 mil­lion pro­ject, was an intense indus­tri­al adven­ture, but a con­trolled one. Today we are proud to see this demo unit oper­at­ing, and we will very shortly be in a pos­i­tion to deliv­er to our first cus­tom­ers.” Gerd Unkel­bach, dir­ect­or of the Fraunhofer CBP, adds: ​“The pro­ject to build and put into oper­a­tion this indus­tri­al demo unit, the only one of its kind in the world, is offi­cially a suc­cess. The Fraunhofer team is mobil­ised to oper­ate this indus­tri­al tool in the most effect­ive way pos­sible.” Marc Del­court, CEO of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, con­cludes: ​“With this achieved, Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is now look­ing to the future. This means gradu­ally approach­ing the pro­cess’ com­mer­cial per­form­ances, pri­or to build­ing IBN-One, the first com­mer­cial plant pro­ject that we have with Cristal Uni­on, the second largest French sug­ar pro­du­cer. In a strongly improv­ing macro-eco­nom­ic con­text (price of sug­ar sharply down; price of oil sharply up; energy trans­ition now at the heart of glob­al con­cerns, etc.), our ambi­tion is to estab­lish a large num­ber of plant pro­jects in vari­ous geo­graph­ic areas.”

About GLOB­AL BIOENERGIES

Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is one of the few com­pan­ies world­wide, and the only one in Europe, that is devel­op­ing a pro­cess to con­vert renew­able resources into hydro­car­bons through fer­ment­a­tion. The Com­pany ini­tially focused its efforts on the pro­duc­tion of isob­utene, one of the most import­ant pet­ro­chem­ic­al build­ing blocks that can be con­ver­ted into fuels, plastics, organ­ic glass and elast­omers. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies con­tin­ues to improve the per­form­ances of its pro­cess, oper­ates its demo plant in Ger­many, and pre­pares the first full-scale plant through a Joint-Ven­ture with Cristal Uni­on, named IBN-One. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is lis­ted on Euronext Growth Par­is (FR0011052257 — ALGBE). Source: Glob­al Bioenergies