sun­li­quid® is awar­ded the 2015 Ger­man Innov­a­tion Prize for Cli­mate and Environment

Clari­ant (IBB net­work mem­ber), a world lead­er in spe­cialty chem­ic­als, was honored for its innov­at­ive sun­li­quid tech­no­logy for the pro­duc­tion of cel­lu­losic eth­an­ol from agri­cul­tur­al residues as part of the 2015 Ger­man Innov­a­tion Prize for Cli­mate and Envir­on­ment (IKU). The bio­tech­no­lo­gic­al pro­cess was awar­ded first place in the Pro­cess Innov­a­tions cat­egory and thus pre­vailed against 14 com­pet­it­ors. The sun­li­quid tech­no­logy con­vinced the jury of inde­pend­ent experts in the area of busi­ness, sci­ence, media and polit­ics, chaired by Pro­fess­or Klaus Töp­fer. Bio­fuels and bio-based chem­ic­als made from agri­cul­tur­al residues such as wheat straw are pro­duced sus­tain­ably and eco­nom­ic­ally using this pro­cess without com­pet­ing with food or feed pro­duc­tion. »Clari­ant is con­tinu­ally invest­ing in the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able products from renew­able raw mater­i­als and in the explor­a­tion of innov­at­ive bio­tech­no­lo­gies such as sun­li­quid. This pion­eer­ing pro­cess has great poten­tial for the pro­duc­tion of envir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible bio­fuels and a mul­ti­tude of bio-based raw mater­i­als that are suit­able for vari­ous spe­cialty products, such as those of the cos­met­ic industry,« says Clari­ant CEO Hari­olf Kottmann. »Bio­fuels from agri­cul­tur­al residues play a key role in mak­ing mobil­ity more sus­tain­able world­wide. Green­house gas emis­sions can be reduced by up to 95 per­cent com­pared with fossil fuels. The award from the Fed­er­al Min­istry val­id­ates our approach and of course we are very pleased,« adds Andre Kolter­mann, Head of Group Bio­tech­no­logy at Clari­ant. With the IKU the Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envir­on­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion, Build­ing and Nuc­le­ar Safety (BMUB) and the Fed­er­a­tion of Ger­man Indus­tries (BDI) awar­ded innov­at­ive pro­jects focused on cli­mate and envir­on­ment­ally friendly pro­cesses, products and ser­vices for the fifth time. The jur­ors based their selec­tion on the pro­found tech­nic­al ana­lys­is of all applic­a­tions by the Fraunhofer Insti­tute for Sys­tems and Innov­a­tion Research (ISI). The award cere­mony with Fed­er­al Envir­on­ment Min­is­ter Bar­bara Hendricks and Hol­ger Lösch, mem­ber of the BDI Exec­ut­ive Board, took place at the BMUB in Ber­lin. The award comes with a cash prize of 25,000 euros.

Über sun­li­quid®

sun­li­quid® is an innov­at­ive, bio­tech­no­lo­gic­al pro­cess for man­u­fac­tur­ing cel­lu­losic eth­an­ol from agri­cul­tur­al residues, such as cer­eal straw, corn stover or sug­ar­cane bagasse. Dur­ing the fully integ­rated pro­cess, highly optim­ized, feed­stock-spe­cif­ic biocata­lysts split cel­lu­lose and hemi­cel­lu­lose into fer­ment­able sug­ars under stable pro­cessing con­di­tions in high yields. As a res­ult, the pro­cess-integ­rated pro­duc­tion of the biocata­lysts offers flex­ib­il­ity and reduces pro­duc­tion costs. In the next step, an optim­ized fer­ment­a­tion organ­ism allows both C5 and C6 sug­ars to be con­ver­ted into eth­an­ol, thereby increas­ing the eth­an­ol yield by about 50 per­cent. An innov­at­ive puri­fic­a­tion pro­cess developed by Clari­ant is instru­ment­al in enabling all the energy required for the pro­cess to be har­ves­ted from the insol­uble residue lignin. The res­ult­ing cel­lu­losic eth­an­ol saves about 95% of CO₂ emis­sions in com­par­is­on to fossil fuels. Since July 2012, Clari­ant has been oper­at­ing a pre-com­mer­cial plant in Straub­ing, pro­du­cing up to 1.000 met­ric tons of cel­lu­losic eth­an­ol from around 4.500 met­ric tons of raw mater­i­als each year. sun­li­quid® IS A REGISTERED TRADE­MARK OF CLARI­ANT. www​.sun​li​quid​.com

Über Clari­ant

Clari­ant is a glob­ally lead­ing spe­cialty chem­ic­als com­pany, based in Mut­tenz near Basel in Switzer­land. On Decem­ber 31, 2014, the com­pany employed a total work­force of 17,003. In the fin­an­cial year 2014, Clari­ant recor­ded sales of CHF 6.116 bil­lion for its con­tinu­ing busi­nesses. The com­pany reports in four busi­ness areas: Care Chem­ic­als, Cata­lys­is, Nat­ur­al Resources, and Plastics & Coat­ings. Clariant’s cor­por­ate strategy is based on five pil­lars: increase prof­it­ab­il­ity, repos­i­tion port­fo­lio, add value with sus­tain­ab­il­ity, foster innov­a­tion and R&D, and intensi­fy growth. www​.clari​ant​.com