Sylvatex and its remarkable progress near the Land of Misfit Feedstocks

October 1, 2018 | Jim Lane

From California comes the happy news that Sylavatex CEO Virginia Klausmeier is expecting a new child in a couple of weeks, and that the significant scale-up taking place in that department is paired with the news that Sylvatex and Trucent have succeeded in a scale up and blending of MicroX renewable blendstock from an optimized distillers corn oil to free fatty acid hydrolysis process. (That’s DCO and FFA to those of you not otherwise deep-engaged in Future Farmers of America.or the Defense Department’s Defense Connect Online.)

A note on Trucent

It used to be Valicor, and best known in this sector for its recycling and recovering technologies including corn oil extraction from ethanol productionrecently sold off its environmental services division to the private equity firm Wind Point Partners, and with the sael went the company’s brand name. The remaining five divisions were re-branded as Trucent. Same management team, same technology focus. Just a label-change, really.

The what and the why of Sylvatex

The technical explanation is this: MicroX enables oxygenates, such as ethanol, to blend seamlessly into diesel leading to a very low carbon lifecycle, and low emissions fuel with significantly favorable production economics.

In English, that means you take one gallon of free fatty acids (made, in this case, by hydrolyzing distiller’s corn oil) and one gallon of conventional corn ethanol, creasing thereby two gallons of a diesel fuel blendstock.

Thereby, one can make diesel fuel without the fuss of actually upgrading an alcohol to a hydrocarbon.

Why would we consider corn oil and ethanol to be Misfit Feedstocks, since you can make good, valuable biodiesel from DCO and corn ethanol has a 15 billion gallon mandated market in the US? Well, the RFS calls for 15 billion gallons, but its actually more like 14, and an excess of ethanol supply is depressing prices for fuels, and back to corn producers.

And, A number of ethanol producers would like to see an alternative market fto biodiesel for their distillers corn oil — in the world of acronyms we would say that the problem of handling the FFAs of DCO limits many to working with REG and there’s a resultant downdraft in the ROI, PDQ. Just FYI.

Alcohols are not normally stable when blended into diesel, especially in the presence of water, leading to phase separation. Why not simply convert alcohols to hydrocarbons by other means? Among other things, it costs you time, money, aggravation and mass.

With Sylvatex’s microemulsion technology, the free fatty carboxylic acids produced as a byproduct of the fuel alcohol production process act as a surfactant to stabilize the water and alcohols by encapsulating them in tiny bubbles. These inverse micelles are thermodynamically stable and can form readily under ambient conditions with only simple splash-blending, and do not phase separate over time.

The latest on standards

How does ASTM view this striking new advance in fuel formulation? Good news on that front. MicroX meets ASTM D8181, a recently approved standard that covers specifications for microemulsion blendstocks for middle distillate fuels. This new standard for renewable bio-based blendstocks that can be used as a diesel alternative provides specifications to ensure that the fuel being produced meets quality and consistency measures while also correlating with vehicle performance to fuel properties.

The Sylvatex backstory

The scale up followed completion of development, construction and operation of a pilot system that was undertaken as part of the joint development agreement the companies entered in February 2018.

As we reported then, In California, Sylvatex teamed up with Valicor——to jointly develop, build out and commercialize Sylvatex’s MicroX technology. MicroX creates renewable nanoscale emulsion systems using distillers corn oil and other bio-based oils as feedstock. The systems have applications in fuels, lithium battery manufacturing, and other specialty chemical applications including food and cosmetics. The agreement builds upon previous collaboration between the two companies.

Sylvatex teams with Valicor to bring the MicroX technology to market

The value play

As we reported in February, what is “interesting to us is the arbitrage play. In this case, $21 million in value-add, per year, for a $3 million investment for the technology bolt-on, at a reference-case 100 million gallon plant.” We went through the math here.

Next steps: calling ethanol producers

The companies are now working to identify commercial ethanol producers interested in becoming co-location partners and private fleets for fuel demonstration partnerships.

Other markets

Looking beyond fuel markets for higher margins and less policy-dependency? The MicroX platform can be used for a number of fuel and specialty chemical applications. Currently, surplus fuel ethanol has been the primary alcohol component that the blendstock has been made from, though other alcohols such as propanol, butanol, and pentanol could also be options. And, Sylvatex creates renewable nanoscale emulsion systems that can be used in not only in fuels, lithium battery manufacturing, and other specialty chemical applications such as food and fragrances.

Reaction from the stakeholders

“We are very pleased with the success of the scale up. Coupled with the new ASTM standard it ensures a positive pathway to commercialization.” said Virginia Klausmeier, CEO of Sylvatex. “Our collaboration with Trucent has been beneficial to both parties, and we are now engaging in an active search for companies interested in joining us to commercialize MicroX blendstocks. In addition to the performance and economic benefits, the compelling carbon life cycle assessment of MicroX offers ethanol producers and fuel demonstration partners a significant added value.”

“Scale up affirmed the technology break-throughs we developed during lab testing. Our enzyme recycle technology and low energy reactors resulted in even lower operating costs than predicted,” said James Bleyer, Director of Technology Development for Trucent.“The pilot plant and technology is now ready for a co-location demonstration, and production of market development quantities of MicroX”.