Gevo Opens Biore­finery for Fully Renew­able Paraxylene

Gevo, Inc., the world’s only com­mer­cial pro­du­cer of bio-isobutan­ol, hold a rib­bon cut­ting cere­mony for its demon­stra­tion-scale paraxylene plant in Sils­bee, Texas, this week. The paraxylene facil­ity is loc­ated adja­cent to Gevo’s exist­ing jet fuel plant in Sils­bee, and estab­lishes the site as a biore­finery that will serve the renew­able chem­ic­als and true drop-in bio­fuels mar­kets. Con­gress­man Steve Stock­man, Mike Schul­the­is, Prin­cip­al Engin­eer Sus­tain­able Pack­aging Glob­al R&D of The Coca-Cola Com­pany, James C. Green­wood, CEO of the Bio­tech­no­logy Industry Organ­iz­a­tion (BIO), and Simon Upfill-Brown, Pres­id­ent of South Hamp­ton Resources were on hand to deliv­er remarks and par­ti­cip­ate in the grand opening. Gevo is work­ing with The Coca-Cola Com­pany to deliv­er a new pro­duc­tion tech­no­logy for renew­able paraxylene, a key build­ing block for pro­du­cing fully renew­able PET for bever­age bottles. Research and Devel­op­ment sup­port for this plant was provided by The Coca-Cola Com­pany under a Joint Devel­op­ment Agree­ment. Gevo is also work­ing with Toray Indus­tries, Inc. to devel­op renew­able paraxylene, a build­ing block for fully renew­able poly­es­ter for pack­aging films and fibers used in tex­tiles, cloth­ing and oth­er applic­a­tions. Fund­ing assist­ance for the con­struc­tion of the paraxylene plant was provided by Toray Indus­tries, Inc., one of the world’s lead­ing pro­du­cers of fibers, plastics, films, and chem­ic­als. Gevo and Toray have suc­cess­fully pro­duced fully renew­able and recyc­lable poly­ethyl­ene tere­ph­thal­ate (PET) fibers and films from isobutan­ol at labor­at­ory scale in 2011. Toray has also signed an off­take agree­ment for paraxylene pro­duced at the Sils­bee facil­ity. Toray will pur­chase paraxylene from Gevo and will con­vert it into PET fibers, tex­tiles and films for scale-up eval­u­ation and mar­ket devel­op­ment pur­poses. ​“We believe we have an eleg­ant, viable route to fully-renew­able, non-pet­ro­leum derived PET and we are pleased that The Coca-Cola Com­pany and Toray have sup­por­ted this work,” said Patrick Gruber, Gevo’s chief exec­ut­ive officer. ​“Fully renew­able PET has the poten­tial to make the world a bet­ter place by redu­cing our depend­ence on oil and the envir­on­ment­al con­sequences asso­ci­ated with pet­ro­leum based raw mater­i­als.” ​“While the tech­no­logy to make bio-based mater­i­als in a lab has been avail­able for many years, we believe Gevo pos­sesses tech­no­lo­gies that have high poten­tial to cre­ate it on a glob­al com­mer­cial level with­in the next few years,” added Scott Vit­ters, Gen­er­al Man­ager, Plant­Bottle™ Pack­aging Innov­a­tion Plat­form at The Coca-Cola Com­pany. ​“The open­ing of this facil­ity is an import­ant mile­stone toward our vis­ion of cre­at­ing all of our PET plastic pack­aging from respons­ibly-sourced plant mater­i­als.” The major­ity of the world’s PET pro­duc­tion is for syn­thet­ic fibers (in excess of 60 per­cent), with bottle pro­duc­tion account­ing for around 30 per­cent of glob­al demand. Gevo’s paraxylene, once con­ver­ted to bio-based PET, has high poten­tial for any com­mer­cial applic­a­tion cur­rently served by pet­ro­leum-derived PET. Accord­ing to Yuki­chi Degu­chi, Seni­or Vice Pres­id­ent, Mem­ber of the Board, and Gen­er­al Man­ager of the R&D divi­sion at Toray, Toray’s man­age­ment policy states that all busi­ness strategies must place pri­or­ity on the glob­al envir­on­ment in an effort to help real­ize a sus­tain­able soci­ety. Under this policy, Toray is expand­ing its bio­mass-derived mater­i­als busi­ness centered on research and devel­op­ment of bio­mass-derived poly­mers. ​“PET is one of the major poly­mer products for Toray and the com­ple­tion of this demon­stra­tion-scale facil­ity by Gevo is a sig­ni­fic­ant step to eval­u­ate busi­ness poten­tial for the fully renew­able PET,” Degu­chi said.

About Gevo

Gevo is a lead­ing renew­able chem­ic­als and next-gen­er­a­tion bio­fuels com­pany. Gevo’s pat­ent-pro­tec­ted, cap­it­al-light busi­ness mod­el con­verts exist­ing eth­an­ol plants into bio-refiner­ies to make isobutan­ol. This ver­sat­ile chem­ic­al can be dir­ectly integ­rated into exist­ing chem­ic­al and fuel products to deliv­er envir­on­ment­al and eco­nom­ic bene­fits. Gevo has executed ini­tial com­mer­cial-scale pro­duc­tion runs at its isobutan­ol facil­ity in Luverne, Minn., con­struc­ted in con­junc­tion with ICM, a lead­ing pro­vider of pro­pri­et­ary eth­an­ol pro­cess tech­no­logy, and has a mar­quee list of part­ners includ­ing The Coca-Cola Com­pany, Sasol Chem­ic­al Indus­tries, and LANXESS, Inc., an affil­i­ate of LANXESS Cor­por­a­tion, among oth­ers. Gevo is com­mit­ted to a sus­tain­able bio-based eco­nomy that meets soci­ety’s needs for plen­ti­ful food and clean air and water. For more inform­a­tion, vis­it www​.gevo​.com. Source: Gevo Inc.