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Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, Clari­ant and INEOS receive major EU fund­ing to demon­strate the pro­duc­tion of isob­utene deriv­at­ives from straw

19.05.2017
Glob­al Bioen­er­gies (IBB net­work mem­ber) announced last week the sig­na­ture of a grant agree­ment aim­ing at demon­strat­ing a new value chain com­bin­ing its Isob­utene pro­cess with tech­no­lo­gies developed by Clari­ant (IBB net­work mem­ber) and INEOS, two of Europe’s lead­ing chem­ic­al com­pan­ies. The aim is to con­vert cur­rently poorly val­or­ised resid­ual wheat straw into second gen­er­a­tion renew­able isob­utene for sub­sequent con­ver­sion into oli­gomers usable in the lub­ric­ants, rub­bers, solvents, plastics, or fuels. The intense R&D cooper­a­tion for the next 48 months starts on June 1st 2017. The agree­ment signed recently between the Bio-Based Indus­tries Joint Under­tak­ing (BBI-JU) and the pro­ject part­ners focuses on the demon­stra­tion of a new value chain, based on the com­bin­a­tion of the tech­no­lo­gies and know-how of the par­ti­cipants from four EU mem­ber states: 
  • Con­ver­sion of straw into gluc­ose- and xyl­ose-rich hydro­lys­ates by Clari­ant Sun­li­quid® tech­no­logy (Ger­many),
  • Fer­ment­a­tion of the straw hydro­lys­ates into bio-isob­utene by Glob­al Bioen­er­gies (France and Germany),
  • Con­ver­sion of bio-isob­utene to oli­gomers by INEOS (a world lead­er in Bel­gi­um and France),
  • Pre­lim­in­ary engin­eer­ing of an hydro­lys­ate-to-isob­utene plant and over­all integ­ra­tion with a straw-to-hydro­lys­ate plant, by Tech­nip­FMC and IPSB (France), and
  • Assess­ment of the sus­tain­ab­il­ity and envir­on­ment­al bene­fits by the Energy Insti­tute at the Uni­ver­sity of Linz (Aus­tria).
The BBI-JU, a pub­lic-private part­ner­ship between the European Uni­on and the Bio-Indus­tries Con­sor­ti­um (BIC), is ded­ic­ated to real­iz­ing the European bio-eco­nomy poten­tial, turn­ing bio­lo­gic­al residues and wastes into green­er every­day products through innov­at­ive tech­no­lo­gies and bio-refiner­ies, expec­ted to become the heart of the bio-eco­nomy. The BBI-JU selec­ted this pro­ject under the name OPTISO­CHEM (N°744330), in the frame of the European HORI­ZON 2020 pro­gramme for research and innov­a­tion, fol­low­ing a very select­ive and com­pet­it­ive pro­cess led by inde­pend­ent experts. The pro­gramme cov­ers a total budget of €16.4 mil­lion. €9.8 mil­lion will be provided by the BBI-JU, with the remainder being con­trib­uted by the par­ti­cipants. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies will receive fund­ing amount­ing to €4.4 mil­lion for its R&D activ­it­ies at its Evry site, its pilot plant in Pomacle (both loc­ated in France), and its demo plant in Leuna (Ger­many). Markus Rar­bach, Head of Bio­fuels & Deriv­at­ives of Clari­ant declares: ​“This pro­ject will demon­strate a key value chain with­in the bio-eco­nomy: advanced bio-refiner­ies based on agri­cul­tur­al residues. We will deliv­er from our pre-com­mer­cial plant in Straub­ing (Ger­many) second gen­er­a­tion sug­ars to Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ facil­it­ies for con­ver­sion to bio-isob­utene, hav­ing already demon­strated in 2016 the per­fect tech­no­logy fit between our Sun­li­quid® plat­form and Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ Isob­utene pro­cess. The lar­ger scale demon­stra­tion will now prove tech­no­lo­gic­al and eco­nom­ic feas­ib­il­ity for com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion in the future.” Jan Ver­meer­sch, Com­mer­cial Dir­ect­or Oli­gomers-Europe at INEOS, declares: ​“INEOS has over fifty years of exper­i­ence in Oli­go­mer­isa­tion of isob­utene based products which are used in mar­kets such as lub­ric­ants, rub­bers, cos­met­ics, plastics, solvents, and fuels. Being a glob­al chem­ic­al pro­du­cer, INEOS is delighted to be able to test this innov­a­tion which will help to increase the share of renew­able products on the mar­ket. It might also allow INEOS to diver­si­fy its feed­stock base and sup­ply its cus­tom­er with bio-based products” Marc Del­court, CEO of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies con­cludes: ​“This sup­port from the BBI-JU will fur­ther anchor our European pres­ence and our strategy to diver­si­fy resources: our isob­utene pro­cess is up and run­ning in the Leuna demo plant based on first-gen­er­a­tion sug­ars. Under this agree­ment, we will demon­strate the suit­ab­il­ity of second-gen­er­a­tion sug­ars, such as straw hydro­lys­ate and pre­pares the full-scale deploy­ment of this new value chain.” Dis­claim­er: this press release reflect only the author’s view and the BBI-JU is not respons­ible for any use that may be made of the inform­a­tion it contains.

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 per­form­ance of its pro­cess, oper­ates an indus­tri­al pilot, has star­ted oper­a­tions at its demo plant in Ger­many, and is pre­par­ing its first full-scale plant through a joint ven­ture with Cristal Uni­on, named IBN-One. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is lis­ted on Altern­ext, Euronext Par­is (FR0011052257 — ALGBE). Source: Glob­al Bioen­er­gies S.A.
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