US-based bioprocess consultancy and service provider AdvanceBio LLC has announced that it has been selected by compatriot cellulosic ethanol technology provider D3MAX LLC to lead the process development and design for a US Department of Energy (DOE) funded project that supports the newly announced Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge.
Jointly launched in September 2021 by the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Transportation (DOF), and Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge represents an effort to reduce the cost, enhance sustainability and expand the production and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
D3MAX’s proposal to develop a pilot plant capable of producing SAF from corn stover was chosen as an awardee under DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) Scale-Up and Conversion funding opportunity announcement number DE-FOA-0002396, Topic Area 1b: Scale-Up – Pilot Scale for Biofuels and Bioproducts.
Based upon its extensive experience in biomass processing and process development, AdvanceBio was selected to provide process design services for the development and construction of the pilot plant.
The Sustainable Aviation Fuel From Renewable Ethanol (SAFFiRE) project aims to demonstrate reliable, low greenhouse gas (GHG) production of SAF from corn stover in a fully integrated, 10 tonne per day pilot-scale facility.
We have worked successfully with AdvanceBio in the past and look forward to doing so again on this important project. We need to decarbonize aviation fuel and we expect that corn stover to SAF will play a major role in this effort, said Mark Yancey, Chief Technology Officer at D3MAX.
The novel process utilizes National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) low-temperature deacetylation and mechanical refining (DMR) pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis using Novozymes commercial hydrolytic enzymes, C5/C6 sugar fermentation to an intermediate ethanol product using commercial yeast from Lallemand and LanzaJet’s Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) process to convert the ethanol to SAF.
We look forward to the opportunity to support the scale-up of such transformative technology. After literally decades of effort and billions of dollars of investment resulting in incremental improvements in biofuels technologies, National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) process offers the opportunity for the first truly revolutionary development in the quest for sustainable, cost-effective, biomass-based fuels and chemicals, said Dale Monceaux, Principal, AdvanceBio.
In addition to the low cost, high titer, highly fermentable sugars produced in this reliable low-cost pretreatment, the valuable, non-condensed lignin produced will be recovered, dried, and pelletized for sale as fuel pellets or sold directly for upgrading, all contributing to the life cycle analysis (LCA).
We identified a new process pathway that permits attainment of a negative GHG emission target. This approach is so transformative that our LCA concepts will be adopted by many entering the field from now on, said Mike Himmel, NREL Senior Fellow.
