PureVision Advances Technology Programs, Breaks Ground on New Laboratory
February 14, 2006Fort Lupton, CO: PureVision Technology, Inc. has achieved significant milestones in scaling up its biomass fractionation technology, hired new technical personnel and broken ground on a new laboratory.
PureVision's patented biorefinery technology fractionates or separates cellulosic biomass into its three major components – cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. This technology differs from all competing technologies in the world today by producing a pure cellulose product stream and two liquid streams containing hemicellulosic sugars and the lignin fraction. This novel fractionation process is on track to become the core technology for large industrial biorefineries, which will be used to convert abundant biomass into bio-based products in the near future. Analogous to oil refineries, biorefineries convert biomass into sugars and other by-products for use in many industrial applications such as the production of ethanol, bio-plastics and other industrial products.
The Company has been processing corn stover in its process development unit under a Department of Energy (DOE) funded program, “Demonstration of the PureVision Biorefinery”. A major milestone for this $1.86 million program was achieved in January at a DOE supervised Stage Gate Review where the ability of the PureVision process to produce three separate product streams from corn stover was demonstrated and verified. Once separated from biomass, the cellulose, hemicellulosic sugars and lignin become building blocks for producing a wide array of bio-products including fuel ethanol, industrial/specialty chemicals and pulps. Demonstrating the technology’s proof of concept and passing the Stage Gate Review were the first significant achievements of the DOE-funded research and development program. As a result of the DOE review, PureVision is authorized to proceed with engaging five additional subcontractors to begin other major program tasks. These tasks include evaluating a new process developed at the University of Utah to produce a fuel additive from the lignin-rich liquid stream.
To implement the “Demonstration of the PureVision Biorefinery” program and two additional government-funded programs now underway, PureVision has hired two technicians to assist the PureVision technical team. Technicians Dan Schaeffer and Lawrence Brown joined the PureVision staff during the latter half of 2005. PureVision now has 9 employees.
Converting Biomass into Sugars, Ethanol, and Pulp
The PureVision continuous process development unit (PDU) is now operating at the Company’s testing facility located at Hazen Research, Inc. in Golden, Colorado. During the next several months PureVision will evaluate a variety of feedstocks including wheat straw, sugarcane bagasse and loblolly pine in addition to corn stover. The 200-pound per day PDU is well suited for establishing the technology’s capabilities, which include producing liquid and solid samples for technical and economic evaluations and providing design and engineering information to build a 2-5 ton per day prototype fractionation reactor.
Feedstock assessments and equipment evaluations using the PDU have progressed to the point where PureVision has a demand for additional laboratory space to conduct analyses on the biomass fractionation streams. PureVision has just broken ground on building a new laboratory. The new laboratory is being built and will be located at the Company’s corporate headquarters in the Fort Lupton Industrial Center. Completion of the new wet laboratory is targeted to be in July of 2006.
In addition to investigating different sugar platform applications of the technology, which include ethanol and industrial/specialty chemical production, the Company is also investigating using its process as an environmentally benign method of pulping. PureVision is working with International Paper Company to determine the likelihood and economics of using its process as a substitute for the conventional kraft pulping process. Under a DOE Small Business Innovative Research grant, PureVision is exploring novel process regimes using its core technology for making very low-lignin cellulose that can be used for producing pulp and sugars.
Thus, PureVision’s core technology is a versatile vehicle for two major product platforms: 1) sugar for producing fermentation products such as ethanol and 2) pulp and paper. There is no other single technology at present that can simultaneously serve both product platforms, placing PureVision in a unique position to develop and deploy biorefineries.