The key biofuels and biomaterials technologies: your view

August 24, 2011 |

Voting is now well underway in the second round of Transformative Technologies, and voters have given us a fairly clear view of how the Sweet 16 will shape up.

60 hours remain in this week’s Transformative Technology balloting — bringing us from 32 to the Sweet 16 technologies that will advance. Nine of the 16 contests separated by 8 or more percentage points. So we have some good ideas of how the field of 16 will shape up.

Who’s Hot, Who’s Not

In bringing down the original 64 competitors down to a prospective 16, Digest subscribers have indicated a few clear technology trends.

1. Magic bugs and fermentation rule. At this stage, five technologies in the Sweet Sixteen are expected to come from advanced fermentation, typically using synthetic biology tools to engineer a magic bug that can directly produces an advanced, drop-in biofuel. That’s Gevo, Amyris, LS9 and Cobalt Technologies.

Solazyme also uses magic bugs – highly engineered heterotrophic algae, though their goal is accumulation and recovery of renewable oils. Two more, Genomatica and OPX Biotechnologies – may bow out in this round primarily because they are pitted against other synthetic biology giants.

Further, Mascoma and Qteros are also developing and enhancing magic bugs – though their goal is consolidated bioprocessing with a primary goal of producing ethanol. Algenol is still in the mix, and may well prevail in its battle with Qteros, with an algal platform that produces starches and then ferments them into ethanol.

Not to leave out Joule Unlimited, which is always taking care to highlight its complete solar conversion system that directly produces drop-in diesel, and ethanol, from sunlight, CO2, water and nutrients – with no intervening biomass production or conversion. But at the heart of Joule’s technology is a magic cyanobacterium that ferments the fuels. Speaking of magic cyanobacteria, Algenol’s magic blue-green algae perform photosynthesis and produce internal sugars that are converted into ethanol inside each algal cell. The ethanol made inside the cell diffuses through the cell wall into the culture medium and then evaporates, along with water, into the headspace.

2. Algae fades from the limelight. Though its devotees are as ardent as ever, there’s no doubt that the gold-rush fever from 2009’s “Summer of Algae” has dimmed. Ponds vs photobioreactors? Only one pond-based technology – Sapphire Energy, made the round of 32, and the company is trailing badly in polling this week against OriginOil. Algenol is using a low-cost bioreactor technology to grow algae, but is directly producing ethanol, inside the cell, rather than recovering lipids for conversion to fuels and materials. Algae’s biggest success, Solazyme, long ago exited the “ponds vs bioreactors” debate and focused its attention on growing proprietary strains of heterotrophic algae in fermentation tanks.

3. Enzymatic and acid hydrolysis. Just a few years back – EH was all the rage, dominating the 2008 round of grants from the DOE aimed at commercial-scale cellulosic biofuels. Back then, four of the six technologies that won DOE awards were based in EH, and a fifth was based in acid hydrolysis. Only two of the five are on a path towards completion at this stage (though BlueFire Renewables continues to seek financing for the third, based on acid hydrolysis). Pacific Ethanol, ICM, Lignol and NewPage projects were announced and never really got off the dime. Meanwhile, even the advanced cellulosic enzyme companies  such as Novozymes, Genencor and DSM have struggled far more than they have before, in the Hot 50 ballots between 2008 and this year. Codexis is still malting strongly, but it has also announced a focus on the production of low-cost cellulosic sugars for renewable chemicals such as surfactant alcohols that has generated a ,to of attention this year.

4. Feedstock technologies. The feedstock genetics companies that have won through to the round of 32 – Ceres and SG Biofuels – are struggling to advance to the Sweet 16. The voters are far more interested in feedstock aggregation – which may well be, in fact, part of the appeal of POET’s technology as well – and certainly is at the heart of Waste Management’s success in both rounds of voting so far.

5. The rise of gas fermentation. It may well be that we would have three gas-based fermentation technologies in the Sweet Sixteen, if Coskata and INEOS Bio had not drawn each other as second-round opponents. For sure, companies that are doing some gas fermentation have seen their popularity climb almost unabated.

6. Thermomcatalytic technologies – sailing into the Round of 32, now struggling. Enerkem, KiOR, Rentech, UOP, Virent – all featuring thermocatalytic or other technologies rooted in chemistry as opposed to biology (fermentation), and all are struggling to advance into the Round of 16 – with the exception of MSW-to-fuels breakout star Enerkem.

Voting to date

Here are the vote totals (expressed in percentages), so far:

International Regional
Amyris 65 vs DSM 35
LS9 57 vs SG Biofuels 43
Enerkem 58 vs Abengoa Bioenergy 42
LanzaTech 51 vs Novozymes 49

Eastern Regional
INEOS Bio 52 vs Coskata  48
Joule 52 vs KiOR 48
Mascoma 53 vs Dupont 47
Qteros 50 vs Algenol 50

Central Regional
Gevo 62 vs OPX Biotechnologies 38
Waste Management 51 vs Virent 49
Terrabon 59 vs ZeaChem 41
POET 52 vs Honeywell’s UOP 48

Western Regional
Solazyme 63 vs Genomatica 37
Codexis 57 vs Rentech 43
OriginOil 61 vs Sapphire Energy 39
Cobalt Technologies 54 vs Ceres 46

Technologies currently ahead

(Magic Bugs) Consolidated bioprocessing: Mascoma, Qteros,
(Magic Bugs) Liquid fermentation to advanced drop-in biofuels or biomaterials: Amyris, LS9, Gevo, Cobalt Technologies
(Magic Bugs) Solar conversion: Joule Unlimited
Fermentation/chemical conversion hybrids: Terrabon,
Gas fermentation: LanzaTech, INEOS Bio
Thermocatalytic conversion to drop-in fuels: Enerkem
Enzymatic hydrolysis: POET
Feedstock aggregation: Waste Management
Cellulosic sugars and enzymes:  Codexis
Renewable oils from heterotrophic algae: Solazyme
Algal technologies: OriginOil

Technologies currently behind

Enzymatic hydrolysis: Abengoa Bioenergy
Biobutanol: Dupont
Gasification/fermentation hybrid: ZeaChem, Coskata
(Magic bugs) Liquid fermentation to advanced drop-in biofuels or biomaterials: OPX Biotechnologies, Genomatica
Thermocatalytic conversion to drop-in fuels: Virent, KiOR, Rentech
Cellulosic sugars and enzymes:  Novozymes, DSM
Algal technologies: Algenol, Sapphire Energy
Feedstock genetics: SG Biofuels, Ceres
Hydroprocessing: UOP

Category: Fuels

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