Anellotech launches; latest fast pyrolysis venture expands growing field of biocrude companies

In Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst recently granted a biofuels startup company, Anellotech, exclusive global rights to the university’s catalytic fast pyrolysis technology developed by chemical engineer and UMass Amherst faculty member George Huber for producing clean, green “grassoline.” Huber will serve as chairman of Anellotech’s scientific advisory board.

Anellotech will offer a low-cost, single-step process for turning forest residues and waste biomass into gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil and renewable chemicals including benzene, toluene and xylenes.

Nick DeCristofaro, director of the UMass Amherst Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer, said, “Huber’s new technique has been the most sought-after technology the campus has licensed to date. We’ve noted unprecedented interest from a number of quarters. Also, we salute Anellotech’s choice of David Sudolsky to lead the new firm through its next phases, including development of a pilot production plant. This is a very solid business decision.”

Anellotech said that its technology would produce commercial amounts of biofuel at price parity with gasoline by 2019. The company is developing a 2 ton per day pilot project and raising Series A venture capital.   The first plant is scheduled to complete construction by 2014, according to the company’s website.

More pyrolysis ventures of interest

Desert Sweet Biofuels has announced a high intensity algae farming project using gasification and pyrolysis to produce biochar and electricity.

Dynamotive. The Canadian pyrolysis company is a candidate for the Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy for 2009-10 – see their candidate profile.

UOP, Ensysn. UOP and Ensyn announced the formation of a new joint venture, dubbed Envergent Technologies, that will market technologies and equipment for generating power, transportation fuel and heating oil from biomass using pyrolysis. The joint venture was initially announced in prospect last September, and will utilize forest and agriculture residues as feedstocks in a Rapid Thermal process, where feedstocks are heated in the absence of oxygen, to produce pyrolysis oils that can be utilized directly in heating oil or power gen.

Sustainable Power. Sustainable Power first was profiled in the Digest in January 2008, when the company was first testing algal biomass for its fast pyrolysis process that  uses nanobacteria as catalysts and aims to license operators in Europe and Asia this year. The company’s “Rivera Porcess” acts like a time machine, converting biomass into syngas, bio-oil and biochar over a period of seconds, mimicking the geological process by which biomass is converted into fossil fuels.

KIT, Lurgi. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a $2.49 biofuel by using pyrolysis on wood waste and straw. The bioliq, produced by heating plant material in a vacuum at 500 degrees C, is then gasified, heated to 1400 degrees C, and catalytically converted into synthetic diesel, hydrogen or methanol fuel. KIT said that they will construct a pilot plant that will open in 2012, and have established an economic model with a production forecast of 272 Mgy.

Iowa State. Two Iowa State research teams have received $11.81 million from the Iowa Power Fund, USDA and the Department of Energy. One team received a $2.37 million grant from the Iowa Power Fund, to replace natural gas in ethanol projects with heat and power produced from biomass using gasification technologies. The second grant, $944,000 from USDA and the DOE, will support a project at Iowa State using fast pyrolysis, gasification and nanotechnology, to produce ethanol. Among improvements: new catalysts are solid nanospheres with honeycomb channels, loaded with a metallic catalyst and other species.

UK Carbon Trust. The Carbon Trust has pledged $10 million to fund pyrolysis projects. Pyrolysis is the chemical decomposition of organic materials by heating in the absence of oxygen or other reagents. Meanwhile, teams at Australia’s CSIRO and Monash University recently announced a new process for producing what it termed a “concentrated biocrude”.

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