Genencor Launches First Commercial Enzyme Product for Cellulosic Ethanol
15 October 2007
Genencor, a division of Danisco A/S, introduced Accellerase 1000, the first commercially available biomass enzyme developed specifically for second generation biorefineries. Accellerase 1000 contains a complex of enzymes that reduces complex lignocellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars.
Genencor has been developing its biomass enzymes for more than 10 years. The effort was partially supported by contracts with the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Accellerase 1000 is the first in what the company expects to be a family of products tailored to different biomass feedstocks and system conditions. The key features that are expected to be important at commercial scale are already built into this first product.
Benefits of Accellerase include:
Enhanced saccharification performance on a variety of feedstocks.
Ability to operate in simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) processes, two step sequential hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF) processes or hybrids of the two.
High ß-glucosidase activity to minimize residual cellobiose, which may lead to a higher saccharification and ultimately to a faster ethanol fermentation. Yields may also be improved.
Unclarified product. The remaining nutrients from enzyme production are available to the yeast in addition to the fermentable sugars produced by saccharification.
Minimal formulation to ensure that enzyme formulation chemicals do not interfere with saccharification carbohydrate profile analysis or subsequent yeast fermentation.
In the Danish business press Danisco say they do not expect to sell large volumes of this new enzyme product until 4 to 10 years from now. They will be happy to sell it now to as many pilot projects and research facilities as possible so that they will use it massively once they are ready for mass production of cellulosic ethanol.
The beauty of using enzymatic conversion of biomass instead of gasification into synthetic fuel is that it saves energy since it happens at low temperature. It also preserve valuable biomass to be used to produce byproducts such as oil and protein rich distillers grains.
Posted by: Henrik | 15 October 2007 at 01:51 PM