We are working on the valorization of agricultural residues, forestry industry waste and in general all ligneocellulosic feedstocks. The world is rich in many kinds of feedstock which are not exploited and in some cases they are set on fire creating significant pollution. All too often, unfortunately, agricultural residues like wheat straw, palm residue, sugarcane bagasse, soft and hard wood, corn stover, high biomass sorghum are left on the fields and than burned, while they are excellent “green feedstock for green fuel”.
We are the only company in the world to have the proven technology on industrial scale using agricultural residues and forestry industry waste as feedstock, to produce a high value second generation fuel: the 2G Ethanol, a low carbon no- food competitive fuel based on a second generation technology.
Ethanol is a globally used chemical with many established industrial application and enormous potential, and in many countries it is widely blended with gasoline. Our 2G Ethanol has the same features and properties as the fossil fuel, so it can replace gasoline completely.
Our technology is based on a proven, flexible and efficient process, which allows to use it anywhere in the world, thanks to the pretreatment phase which easily adapts to the regional availability of the feedtstock. The strenght of our proposal is that our plants can be customized according to the region and to the feedstock.
We can also count on the use of our Large Scale Demo Plant for reasearch activities and testing of any different feedstock, aimed at customizing the process to achieve the most effective business plan for specific feedstocks.
In the picture: Demo plant in Thomaston, GA, USA
NextChem has a partnership ongoing with GranBio, the 100% Brazilian industrial biotechnology company, to license the patented GranBio 2G Ethanol technology to produce cellulosic ethanol. GranBio’s 2G Ethanol technology converts lignocellulosic, no-food biomass to renewable, low carbon intensity biofuels. NextChem is commercializing this technology worldwide, providing engineering capabilities and intelligence, EPC experience and Group global presence, integrated services from feasibility studies to project completion, integration of different projects aspects, covering all the supply chain service to the off-take of the final product.
Thanks to the wide experience in the plant operating, NextChem and Granbio can also offer a detailed support to identify the best feedstock supply chain from harvesting to storing to process.
The process starts with the collection of raw material no-food competitive as lignocellulosic biomass, wood, grasses, agricultural residues and forestry industry waste, followed by a pre-treatment of biomass phase, in which separation of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin happens. After that, there is the conversion of lignin in biomass energy production, followed by the hydrolysis of cellulose into sugar and the fermentation of sugar into ethanol.
Combining well known and proven technologies with innovative solutions we have overcome the difficulties of the pretreatment phase.
The technology developed by GranBio to produce 2G ethanol has already been implemented in its factory located in São Miguel dos Campos, in Alagoas, the first in the Southern Hemisphere dedicated to cellulosic ethanol.
In the picture: Operational Site located in Alagoas, Brazil just 55km away from the port of Maceio’, using lignocellulosic biomass
For more information: 2Gethanol@nextchem.it