Majors back UK biofuel
21 Sep 2006
BP and DuPont are to jointly develop, produce and market new biofuels in the UK. The first product, a biobutanol, will be launched next year as a gasoline bio-component.
The companies are working with British Sugar to convert the country's first ethanol fermentation facility to produce biobutanol. The unit, at Wissington, Norfolk will have a capacity of 30ktpa and be jointly owned by BP, DuPont and British Sugar.
A study is underway to examine the feasibility of constructing larger facilities in the UK. The partners envisage such a unit could have a capacity of around 250ktpa.
While biofuels today represent less than 2% of global transportation fuels, projections show that they could become 20-30 % of the transport fuel mix in the key markets of Europe and North America.
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 the Wissington biobutanol will be based on an existing ABE (acetone, butanol, ethanol) fermentation technology, but BP and DuPont are developing production technology to make the product more competitive with ethanol.
The two companies 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 BP.
