PureVision Begins Pre-Pilot Testing of Biomass Recovery Innovation
March 25, 2002Laramie, Wyoming: Since September 2001, scientist have been evaluating a new biomass conversion technology that its developers hope will significantly reduce the cost of producing sugars from waste biomass. PureVision Technology, Inc., a private development company based in Ft. Lupton, Colorado has teamed up with the Western Research Institute to undertake testing of the PureVision innovation. This invention is a multi-staged process that separates the constituents of biomass such as agricultural wastes, trees, grasses, and other biomass inputs. With co-funding from the US DOE, PureVision and WRI have been conducting pre-pilot studies using corn stover as the biomass feedstock.
This technology might be termed as a “steam pretreatment of biomass" using multiple steps to separate the hemicellulose and lignin from cellulose. The inventor of the process, PureVision Chief Scientist Dick Wingerson, refers to the technology as "biomass fractionation", a critical unit operation of a bio-refinery. Wingerson, a former US Air Force Scientist, developed the fractionation technology as a cost-reduction approach to enzymatic hydrolysis. The process uses water, steam and reagents at elevated temperatures to prepare biomass feedstocks for use in the manufacturing of paper, plastics, energy, ethanol and other chemicals The reactive fractionation biomass technology being developed by PureVision is patent-pending and is presently being evaluated at pre-pilot scale.
After undergoing bench-top testing at Hazen Research Inc.’s testing laboratories and verifying the proof-of-concept during 2000-2001, PureVision contracted with Western Research Institute (WRI) to build and operate a pre-pilot apparatus for evaluating its invention. The primary goal of Phase I WRI/PureVision pre-pilot program is to produce a purified cellulose fraction from corn stover. Preliminary results from WRI indicate that a >99% clean cellulose product has been achieved, a conclusive success. This should equate to a much lower cellulase enzyme loading requirement to enzymatically hydrolyze cellulose into glucose. It is this reduced cellulase requirement that could provide the most significant cost savings in the new invention.
The biomass fractionation process is the heart of proposed PureVision Bio-refineries. Biomass fractionation technology being developed by PureVision separates the three main constituents of biomass into purified streams. Once separated, the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin fractions can be converted to useful products, including sugars, fuel, energy, and fiber.
The WRI/PureVision program has gone beyond a demonstration of clean cellulose production to explore a range of operating conditions with the goal of economic optimization. There are three interrelated steps in the process with time, temperature, pH, flow rates, and reagents in each section influencing the results. Utilizing different combinations of parameters, over 80 tests have been conducted to date with more planned in the next phase. WRI has proposed to DOE to fund the project for a second year. During this proposed Phase II program, other ligno-cellulosic feedstocks such as bagasse, hog fuel from hybrid poplar farms and softwoods will be evaluated with the objective of producing additional purified cellulose fractions. Currently, PureVision and its technology team have begun to plan for the challenging tasks of scaling up from a batch process to a continuous process.
Since 1992, PureVision principals have been evaluating, researching and developing biomass conversion technologies employing enzymatic hydrolysis. PureVision's mission is to commercialize the conversion of cellulosic biomass into sugars and lignin used to produce energy, ethanol, and other chemicals in Bio-Refineries. PureVision's primary focus is to produce sugars from biomass at costs competitive with petroleum in order to enhance and extend the domestic energy and chemical base without adding additional carbon to the environment.
The PureVision fractionation innovation, once scaled-up has the potential of becoming the technology breakthrough needed to economically convert agriculture and forest product residues into sugars and industrial products.
The Technology
Biomass, or plant matter, is made up of three major components: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Lignocellulosic material is a class of biomass that is rich in lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose, including wood, agricultural residues and paper wastes. PureVision's unique biomass fractionation process is capable of producing five- and six-carbon sugars from corn stover and is expected to have the same capability for a diverse range of biomass materials. These sugars are the raw materials for producing a wide range of industrial and commercial products in bio-refineries.
The bio-products produced using PureVision's biomass fractionation process will enable PureVision and its commercialization partners to penetrate a wide range of industries including, but not limited to chemical, energy, transportation, agri-business, textiles, building products, pharmaceuticals, and paper industries. One of the key strategies for utilizing PureVision's technology is to produce fuel ethanol to supplement gasoline. In addition to significant environmental benefits, domestically produced ethanol will reduce the United States dependency on foreign oil.
It is the fractionation technology that distinguishes PureVision in the marketplace by offering a critical process to economically separate and subsequently convert cellulose and hemicellulose to sugars. These product streams (hemicellulose, lignin, and cellulose) can then be processed further in the remainder of the bio-refinery, or they can be marketed as raw materials for others to process.
The cellulose will be converted into sugars via enzymatic hydrolysis, a process that uses enzymes to breakdown or hydrolyze cellulose into sugars. Purified cellulose should equate to significant cost-savings for enzymatic hydrolysis due to much lower cellulase enzyme loading requirements. The sugars can be used to produce ethanol and a host of industrial products. The hemicellulose will also be converted into sugars. The remaining lignin is an energy-rich biomass residue that can be initially used to fuel an on-site co generation facility producing steam and electricity to operate the bio-refinery. Market demand will dictate which products will be produced in order to take full advantage of PureVision’s versatile technology. The following diagram describes potential bio-based products and co-products from the PureVision process.
The largest barrier to the utilization of these materials in bio-refineries has been the high cost of enzymes used to convert biomass into sugars and bio-products. PureVision's breakthrough fractionation technology addresses this barrier by purifying and separating cellulose from other biomass components in the non-acid fractionation process. Once the cellulose, hemicellulose and the lignin fractions are separated, they become feedstocks for producing energy, chemicals, sugars, bio-plastics, fiber and many other consumers and industrial products. The biomass-derived sugars produced by the novel PureVision process can be used to make ethanol or can be marketed to existing commercial bio-refineries such as corn wet millers and other chemical producers.
Partnering and Co-locating with Industry
PureVision is now working with several established agri-businesses interested in co-locating PureVision bio-refineries. Food processing wastes can be used as feedstocks in the PureVision bio-refinery to produce energy and sugars. Co-locating bio-refineries next to where wastes are generated enables PureVision to minimize transportation costs, thus, increasing the economics of producing resources from various waste streams.
A strategic mission for PureVision is to combine with other industry to exploit its technology in multiple markets. This is an on-going strategy that PureVision has already initiated with many technology partners, universities, government-funded laboratories, one licensee, and large companies producing significant quantities of biomass waste. PureVision commercialization initiatives include licensing the proprietary biomass fractionation technology, as well as cross-licensing processes from other companies that complement PureVision commercialization efforts. PureVision looks to collaborate with other industrial partners to build bio-refineries and commercialize the conversion of ligno-cellulosic biomass into resources.
The commercial viability of biomass-to-resource plants depend on many factors including the value of the feedstock, value of end products, cost of energy, the size of the plant, transportation costs, and economic incentives such as governmental tax incentives for producing ethanol. Perhaps just as important to the long-term outlook are expanding worldwide initiatives aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. During 2002, PureVision plans to scale-up the WRI pre-pilot program to a one-ton per day pilot plant to be built by Hazen Research, Inc. in Golden, Colorado. This development program will enable PureVision to design and engineer a demonstration-scale bio-refinery. In 2003, PureVision expects to break ground on a large-scale demonstration plant to process biomass waste into sugars.
Once perfected, the PureVision biomass fractionation technology is anticipated to become the breakthrough needed to economically convert ligno-cellulosic biomass into industrial product streams. Toward this end, PureVision is continuing to develop strategic partnerships with existing companies in many different industries, including the food, biotechnology, waste management, engineering, and finance. As both technology developers and project developers, PureVision is emerging in a unique position to offer critical biomass conversion technologies with the goal of collaborating with industrial partners to produce economical and environmental bio-products and services.