DuPont Industrial Biosciences has been awarded a grant from the European Commission (EC) to demonstrate high-efficiency enzyme production to increase biogas yields as part of the DEMETER project, funded from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme.
DuPont Industrial Biosciences, a division within the US-headed global chemical and biological engineering company DuPont, has been awarded a grant from the European Commission (EC) to demonstrate high-efficiency enzyme production to increase biogas yields. The grant is part of the Demonstrating More Efficient Enzyme Production to Increase Biogas Yields (DEMETER) project, funded from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme.
The DEMETER project is expected to demonstrate a yield increase and cost reduction in the production process for biogas enzymes, which can improve the economics of biogas production in Europe. DEMETER includes an entire value chain of biogas experts including: DuPont (enzymes), Miavit (biogas ingredients distributor), BioBase Europe (pilot plant), OWS (anaerobic digester expertise), DBFZ (biogas research centre), Ciaotech (economic and environmental evaluation), and Biomoer (biogas farm). The project is expected to be completed over the next three years.
– DuPont is proud to be a partner in project DEMETER and to apply our decades of experience in the global industrial enzyme business to supporting the continued growth of the biogas sector in the European Union and around the world. Ultimately, this project will demonstrate to biomethane producers the power of enzymes to improve biogas yields and process robustness, ultimately increasing their revenue and profitability, said Conrad Burke, Global Marketing Director at DuPont Industrial Biosciences in a statement.
The grant will be used to improve and scale-up the enzyme-producing fermentation process to reach a cost reduction of at least 15 percent and to demonstrate the efficiency of the enzymes in biogas field trials in Europe.
The company ventured into the biogas sector in July 2016 with the launch of its “OPTIMASH AD-100” enzyme. In November 2016, it announced a supply agreement of its “FIBREZYME G4” enzyme biotechnology with MAVIT GmbH for inclusion in the latter’s biogas ingredient “MiaMethan ProCut”. Furthermore, DuPont has recently developed a new enzyme product, derived from Myceliophthora thermophila C1, that it says shows a promising 10 percent cost-reduction in the production of biogas from organic waste.
