St1 Biofuels to user Novozymes enzymes at first sawmill ethanol plant

In Denmark, Novozymes announced a deal to supply enzyme technology to a new biorefinery that will be built by St1 Biofuels in Kajaani, Finland. The facility will be co-located at a sawmill site, and will be the first facility in the world to use sawdust from softwood as feedstock to produce cellulosic ethanol at commercial scale. The process uses steam-explosion to open up the cellulosic structures of the sawdust, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to extract the sugars for ethanol fermentation.

The new plant marks the potential for commercial scale production of cellulosic ethanol in regions where plenty of softwood is available, notably the Northern Hemisphere. Softwood comes from trees like pine that have needles instead of leaves.

The plant will initially produce 10 million liters (2.7 million gallons) of cellulosic ethanol per year, but can be scaled up to annual output of 50 to 100 million liters. Total investment is expected to be €40 million of which an investment grant will cover 30%. Construction is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2015, with production expected to start in 2016.