New Plant Will Create Specialty Chemicals From Cellulosic Materials
6 July 2009 Massachusetts, US-based Myriant Technologies LLC, a privately-held, biotech developer and manufacturer of next-generation, renewable biochemicals, announced its collaboration with the University of Florida’s (UF) Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and Buckeye Technologies Inc., for a first-of-its-kind biorefinery pilot project to be located in Perry, Florida, says PRNewswire. The 5 ton per day facility will produce both high-value specialty chemicals and biofuels from cellulosic materials.
The plant will be located at Buckeye’s Perry, Florida facility and will be built with the aid of $20 million previously allocated by the Florida Legislature. The project will utilize UF-developed technologies to produce biobased chemicals with broad market applications, licensed exclusively to Myriant, as well as biofuels. UF scientists will operating the ethanol research platform while Myriant will operate the specialty chemicals component of the project. UF’s research program was the first to achieve success in the processing of cellulosic sugars and the metabolic conversion of those sugars into fuels and chemicals. Buckeye Technologies is at the forefront of the paper industry in maximizing use and value of cellulosic feedstocks.
The project will be capable of producing in excess of 140,000 gallons of biofuels or 1,000 tons of biobased chemicals annually from a variety of feedstocks, including wood, sugar cane bagasse and sweet sorghum. The groundbreaking is planned for fall 2009, with start of operations scheduled for 2010.
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