Glob­al Bioen­er­gies and Audi cooper­ate in the field of fuel additives

Leuna – Glob­al Bioen­er­gies announced at the begin­ning of July that its Ger­man sub­si­di­ary, Glob­al Bioen­er­gies GmbH (IBB net­work mem­ber), secured a €400.000 grant from the BMBF (the Ger­man fed­er­al min­istry for research and edu­ca­tion) to fin­ance a 14 month-pro­ject aimed at pro­du­cing renew­able gas­ol­ine additives. The Com­pany will first pro­duce ETBE, a molecule obtained by the con­dens­a­tion of eth­an­ol and isob­utene, and presently used as a gas­ol­ine addit­ive in large volumes (world­wide mar­ket: 3.4 mil­lion tons per year). Today, ETBE is only half renew­able, as the isob­utene used to pro­duce it is derived from oil. For the first time ever, 100% renew­able ETBE will be pro­duced at labor­at­ory scale, with the col­lab­or­a­tion of the Fraunhofer CBP: Isob­utene pro­duced at Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ Pomacle pilot plant will be con­ver­ted into ETBE at the Leuna-based Fraunhofer CBP, which will then be shipped to Audi for labor­at­ory test­ing. The com­pany will then con­vert the first batches of bio-isob­utene to be pro­duced from the Leuna Demo plant into large enough quant­it­ies of renew­able isooctane for run­ning pre­lim­in­ary engine test­ing at Audi. Rein­er Man­gold, Head of Sus­tain­able Product Devel­op­ment at Audi, states: ​“The samples received last year from Glob­al Bioen­er­gies are now val­id­ated ana­lyt­ic­ally. We are eager to receive lar­ger batches to run pre­lim­in­ary engine test­ing. Our col­lab­or­a­tion with Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, to devel­op e‑gasoline (Audi e‑benzin) is get­ting up to speed.” Ales Bulc, CEO of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies GmbH, con­cludes: ​“We thank the BMBF, as well as the Pro­jekt­träger Jülich in charge of the detailed eval­u­ation of the tech­no­logy, for their renewed sup­port. We are presently intensi­fy­ing our efforts to have our Demo plant up and run­ning this autumn.”

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 indus­tri­al pilot,builds its demo plant in Ger­many, and is pre­par­ing the first full-scale plant through a joint ven­ture with Cristal Uni­on, named IBN-One. The com­pany also rep­lic­ated its achieve­ment to pro­pyl­ene and butadiene, two mem­bers of the gaseous olefins fam­ily, key molecules at the heart of pet­ro­chem­ic­al industry. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is lis­ted on Altern­ext, Euronext Par­is and on the Altern­ext Oseo Innov­a­tion index. Source: Glob­al Bioen­er­gies GmbH Latest news about Glob­al Bioen­er­gies from 11 July 2016: GLOB­AL BIOEN­ER­GIES, IBN-One and ASPEN enter into part­ner­ship on isooctane for spe­cialty fuels