Ineos advances Europe's 'first' waste-to-bioethanol plant
14 Jun 2010
Teesside, UK – INEOS Bio awarded £7.3m grant from One North East and the Department for Energy and Climate Change for construction of Europe’s first advanced bioethanol-from-waste plant using the INEOS BioEnergy Process Technology.
The 30-million-litre biorefinery planned for Seal Sands in the north east of England could be operational by 2012, with an expansion planned for 2015. Converting over 100,000 tonnes per year of biodegradable household and commercial waste it will also generate more than 3MW of clean electricity for export.
“This grant from One North East and the Department for Energy andClimate Change, together with the considerable support that we are receiving from organisations such as the National Non Food Crop Centre, is enabling us to make progress with our commercialisation plans in the North East of England,” said
Peter Williams, CEO of INEOS Bio.
THE grants follow the completion of a feasibility study by INEOS Bio. DECC has approved funding of £4.5m for this next phase of the project, while One North East is investing £2.8m, of which £1.8m has been secured through the Tees Valley Industrial Programme.
INEOS claims its BioEnergy process can combine thermochemical and biochemical technologies to achieve energy-efficient and low-cost biofuel production from a wide range of biomass materials, including household and industrial waste.
The technology features an anaerobic fermentation step, through which naturally occurring bacteria convert gases derived directly from biomass into bioethanol. This bioethanol production is integrated with combined heat and power generation.
