Virent, HCL Cleantech pick up $900K BIRD grant for advanced biofuels
In Israel, The Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F), US Dept. of Energy and Israel’s Ministry of National Infrastructure have awarded $900,000 to the Israeli biofuel company, HCL Cleantech Ltd., and the US company, Virent Energy Systems, Inc.
The grant will support Virent’s conversion of HCL’s pine tree sugars into drop-in biofuels and covers almost half of the $2.1 million total project cost.
The BIRD project uses HCL CleanTech’s proprietary conversion technologies that produce cost-effective non-food sugars with Virent’s BioForming technology that converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules.
HCL CleanTech will also provide pine sugars to a leading biopolymer producer for evaluating fermentation into hydrocolloids that historically are produced from cane or corn sugars for use in a broad range of personal care, food and beverage applications.
Category: Fuels
