Blue Sugars: Biofuels Digest’s 5-Minute Guide

Locations: Rapid City – SD and Upton – WY, United States

São Paulo – SP, Brazil

Company description:

Converting sugarcane bagasse into lignin

Blue Sugars is now commercializing its process technology to companies in the global sugarcane industry. In April 2012, Blue Sugars licensed its technology to Petrobras SA, Brazil’s largest company and one of the world’s ten largest companies by market capitalization, for exclusive use in Petrobras sugarcane mills.

Blue Sugars offers the following products to the market:

• • Project development
• • EPC select services and turnkey solutions
• • Technology license
• • Structured financing including co-investments
• • Start-up and operating management

Strategic partner: Petrobras

Since August 2010, Blue Sugars has developed our technology in partnership with Petrobras for the use of sugarcane bagasse feedstock in commercial plants embedded in Petrobras’ sugarcane assets. In April 2012, we licensed our technology to Petrobras for the exclusive deployment in all of Petrobras sugarcane mills.

Petrobras announced the construction and start-up of its first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant for the year 2015.

Petrobras is a major integrated oil, gas, and energy company operating in the following segments of the industry: exploration and production, downstream, marketing, transportation and petrochemicals, distribution, natural gas, energy and biofuels.

http://www.petrobras.com.br

Process technology

Blue Sugars has developed a continuous process technology consisting of:

• • Biomass handling
• • Biomass low acid impregnation
• • Thermal-mechanical pre-treatment
• • Enzymatic hydrolysis
• • Solids separation
• • Co-fermentation of C5 and C6 sugars
• • Yeast propagation
• • Distillation and evaporation
• • Dehydration

Blue Sugars’ process technology is robust and adjustable to the feedstock and industrial requirements of Blue Sugars’ partners.

Demonstration plant

Since 2009, Blue Sugars has been operating its demonstration plant in Upton,WY. The plant allows for the processing of various types of biomass feedstock at a capacity of 1.0 – 2.0 dry tons / hour. This capacity allows for safe scale-up to commercial plants at industry typical factors of 10-15.

The plant is equipped with the following capabilities:

• • Biomass storage, handling and preparation
• • Biomass low acid impregnation
• • Biomass thermal-mechanical pre-treatment
• • Enzymatic multiple-stage hydrolysis
• • Enzyme recycle
• • Solid separation
• • On-site enzyme production
• • Clear mash and mash co-fermentation of C5 and C6 sugars
• • Yeast propagation
• • Distillation and evaporation
• • Dehydration
• • Ethanol storage

Environmental Health & Safety standards, automation and instrumentation all meet the high requirements of Blue Sugars’ petrochemical partners. The plant allows for remote live-stream data sharing with the development partners.

Blue Sugars’ demonstration plant is primarily designed for the validation of customized process designs and equipment and other test programs. The plant is highly adjustable to new feedstocks and process changes.  But more than being a mere demonstration plant, it allows for industrial scale production of ethanol.

Blue Sugars processes several hundred dry tons of biomass feedstock in each of its industrial validation campaigns.

Blue Sugars produces fuel spec ethanol eligible for RINs. The ethanol is predominantly shipped to Blue Sugars’ partners. The lignin by-product is used for sampling and development of value-added applications.