(412b) Development of Process and Optimization of Lignocellulosic Biomass for Its Conversion to Sugars for Application in Biofuels, Jet Fuels and Specialty Chemicals

Ethanol as a liquid transportation fuel is currently produced from various renewable resources including corn ,wheat and energy crops.  However, ethanol production from cellulosic biomass an attractive alternative solution and is environmentally sustainable.  Biomass such as plant fibers can be hydrolyzed to yield a variety of sugars that can be subsequently fermented by microbes to yield ethanol. First generation of cellulosic ethanol technologies involved four steps like pretreatment , enzymatic saccharification to derive fermentable sugars, fermentation operation followed by product recovery.

Sweetwater Energy, Rochester ,NY has pioneered a unique biomass pretreatment and bio technology using proprietary sophisticated engineered pretreatment  and further optimized which is capable of hydrolyzing biomass to drive sugar readily amendable saccharification of  sugars in hemicellulose as well as cellulose fractions to monomeric C5and C6 sugars. The  improved SWE biomass conversion process  can be used on simple substrates  wide variety of lignocelluloses biomass such as corn stover, switch grass, corn cobs and other woody biomass with ability to separate C5 sugar or use as blended(C5and C6) streams  while achieving yields of sugar recovery exceeding 86% of theoretical value.  This presentation will review SWE  technology and overall approach to process development, and   will highlight recent advances made at SWE in establishing demo model capable of processing 3 MT/day of cellulosic Biomass and the launch of a commercial process processing 21 million lbs of sugars /year for bolt on operation with the corn plant.  The importance of pretreatment conditions, enzyme  dosing, and various process strategies enabling C5 and C6 sugar and its refinement and polishing that can  then be used for commercial production of ethanol fuel, jet fuels , biochemical and specialty chemicals will be discussed.