UK launch for new BP, DuPont biofuel

London — BP and DuPont are to jointly develop, produce and market new biofuels under an agreement announced 20 June. The first product, a biobutanol, will be launched in the UK next year as a gasoline bio-component, said BP.

The companies are working with British Sugar to convert the country's first ethanol fermentation facility to produce biobutanol instead, said a BP spokeswoman. The unit at Wissington, Norfolk, she said, will have a capacity of 30 kilotnnnes per annum (ktpa) and will be jointly owned by BP, DuPont and British Sugar.

A study in conjunction with British Sugar is underway to examine the feasibility of constructing larger facilities in the UK. The partners envisage that this unit would have a capacity of around 250 ktpa, according to the BP representative.

While biofuels today represent less than 2% of global transportation fuels, projections show that they could become a 20-30 % of the transport fuel mix in the key markets of Europe and North America, said the spokeswoman.

BP and DuPont have been working together since 2003 to overcome the technical limitations of bio-derived transportation fuels. Issues include compatibility with existing fuel supply and distribution systems, the ability to blend in higher concentrations without requiring vehicle modifications, and fuel economy.

Biobutanol's low vapour pressure and its tolerance to water contamination in gasoline blends facilitate its use in existing gasoline supply and distribution channels. It can be blended into gasoline at larger concentrations than existing biofuels, without the need to retrofit vehicles and offers better fuel economy than gasoline-ethanol blends.

Initial production of biobutanol will be based on an existing ABE (acetone, butanol, ethanol) fermentation technology, said the spokeswoman. However, BP and DuPont are now developing biobutanol production technology to make the product more competitive with ethanol, she added.

BP and DuPont plan to use a range of feedstocks in the production process. These, said BP, include sugar cane or beet, corn, wheat, or cassava and, in the future, cellulosic feedstocks from fast growing "energy crops" such as grasses or agricultural byproducts/

As production of biobutanol is similar to ethanol and uses similar feedstocks, existing ethanol capacity can be retrofitted to produce biobutanol, according to a BP statement.