Thomas Buhl, Head of Business Development for Global Bioenergies, confirmed that his company’s goal is to make its technology compatible with first-generation biomass, second-generation biomass and “non-biomass” feedstock.

Although there has been no public announcement or discussion of what such an Audi/Global Bioenergies development effort might entail, in 2011, Global Bioenergies began a feasibility study to examine whether its artificial isobutene pathway could be functionally transferred into LanzaTech’s carbon monoxide-using organism (earlier post).

LanzaTech, founded in 2005, has developed a novel gas-liquid fermentation process that produces fuels and chemicals from gas resources and is the first company to successfully demonstrate production of fuel-grade ethanol from steel mill gases. This proprietary novel gas fermentation technology converts the carbon monoxide-containing waste gases emitted by blast furnace, coke oven and BOF (basic oxygen furnace) operations into low-cost ethanol and high-value chemicals. (Earlier post.)

The addition of Global Bioenergies’ synthetic isobutene pathways into the LanzaTech organisms would presumably offer another end product for the LanzaTech process.

However, in 2014, LanzaTech signed a research and development agreement with its partner INVISTA to collaborate on the development of gas-fermentation process technology for the production of industrial chemicals from CO₂ and H₂ using proprietary INVISTA host organisms and metabolic pathways. If successful, the first commercialization of this technology is expected as early as 2018. (Earlier post.)

Again emphasizing that there has been no announcement of development direction, the potential building blocks for a solar fuels isooctane process are emerging. Neither Global Bioenergies or LanzaTech would comment, citing confidentiality agreements.

Isobutene and isooctane. Isobutene (C₄H₈, an isomer of butylene) is one of the major building blocks of the petrochemicals industry, with a current market worth of $25 billion that may eventually address an additional market worth $400 billion. 15 million tonnes are produced every year and are turned into plastics, rubbers and fuels.

The process to convert isobutene to isooctane is well-established. Isobutene dimerization (putting two isobutene molecules together) and subsequent hydrogenation produces isooctane. (The trimerization of isobutene produces tri-isobutenes, which can be used as a premium solvent and as an additive for jet fuel.)

The basic process for the oligomerization of light olefins (isobutene and isobutane) in FCC units at refineries has received attention for a number of years in terms of catalyst design and process tuning. Selectivity problems and catalyst deactivation can hinder the critical isobutene dimerization reaction. The hydrogenation step can use either noble metal or non-noble metal catalysts. Although non-noble metal catalysts are less prone to deactivation and fouling, they require high hydrogen partial pressures, resulting in higher costs.

Further, there is interest in developing alternatives to the conventional process for isooctane production via dimerization of isobutene and hydrogenation. For example, a team from the University of Waterloo earlier this year published a paper proposing a catalytic distillation process for the more energy efficient production of isooctane from isobutene (Goortani et al.).

In addition to the isobutene to isooctane pathway, noted Buhl, there is another option that might be less costly:

Another approach would be to take just one bio-isobutene, and one isobutane [C₄H₁₀, an isomer of butane], in this case no H₂ needed. Isobutane is 30 to 40% cheaper than regular gasoline but cannot be used (significantly) in fuel because of its high volatility. So here our isobutene would allow us to integrate this very cheap fossil component into the fuel.

—Thomas Buhl

Audi e-fuels. Audi is active in the development of CO₂-neutral, synthetic fuels, which it calls, collectively, e-fuels. In addition to its work with Global Bioenergies, Audi has projects underway with Joule in the US for the development and testing of synthetic ethanol and synthetic diesel (earlier post); has an e-gas project underway in Werlte, Germany (earlier post); and has a new partnership with Climeworks and sunfire on producing synthetic diesel from water, air-captured CO₂ and green electricity (earlier post).

Resources

• Behnam M. Goortani, Aashish Gaurav, Alisha Deshpande, Flora T. T. Ng, and Garry L. Rempel (2015) “Production of Isooctane from Isobutene: Energy Integration and Carbon Dioxide Abatement via Catalytic Distillation” Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 54 (14), 3570-3581 doi: 10.1021/ie5032056