Cellulosic Ethanol-Progress & Issues

Dr D K TULI
Executive Director & Centre Coordinator
DBT-IOC Centre for Advanced Bio-Energy Research
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.
R&D Centre , Faridabad

Petrofed Conference Nov 2014

Major Expectations from Bio-Energy

Must be sustainable
Must be available at the desired volumes
Has to be cost competitive with fossil fuels
Must have +ve environmental impact
Has reasonable capex & opex
No competition with farm land & food
Based on cheaper & surplus feedstocks

Major Challenges in Bio-Energy

Sustainability & scale

Bringing down the costs
Feedstock collection, transport & storage
Multi-feed technology
Higher NER & lower LCA
Development of fungible fuels
Few technologies are ready

Feed Stocks for Bio-Energy

Ligno-cellulosic Biomass (LCB) .all plants, living
or dead
Agricultural / forest wastes , Municipal biowaste, MSW
Plant seeds giving oils
Micro-algae and marine plants
Carbon sources like CO / CO2 from waste gases
Conversion of photosynthetic energy stored in
plants to useable energy

AGENDA For
Discussions

Ethanol as Gasoline Blend

Up to 10 % ethanol in gasoline allowed

Severe supply side constraints
Only source is sugarcane molasses
A big part of ethanol used for potable &
chemical industry
Sugar is a cyclical industry
Additional sources are necessary

Production of Molasses by the Sugar

Industry
14

Molasses

12
10
8
6
4

Molasses

2
0

INDIAN ETHANOL PRODUCTION CAPABILITY

CELLULOSIC ETHANOL

TYPICAL PROCESS OUTLINE

Lignocellulosic Biomass

STEP 1

Pre-Treatment Step

STEP 2

Saccharification

STEP 3

Fermentation

STEP 4

Separation/Purification

Alcohol

FEED STOCK ISSUES

Sustainable availability

Cost ( ~ 30-40 % of ethanol cost )

Collection & Transportation
Variability
Storage

Crop residue Types

NEEDS RELOOK

Sugarcane tops most surplus residue burnt in the fields

Wheat ,Maize, Jowar, Ragi & Bajra residue used mostly as cattle fodder
Chilli, Pulses, Oilseeds residues used as fuel for household needs
Data from tifac.org.in

Typical bulk densities of unprocessed biomassTransportation cost & Logistics

Biomass densification- Options

Mild Steam Explosion at intermediate locations
Mild acid treatment & compression
Mechanical milling & compression
Only bailing

COSTING SHALL DECIDE THE CHOICE

Supply Chain Operations (mid-, short-term decisions)

Challenges with Biomass Supply Chains and Logistics
Management
Supply is constrained by availability
Supply is seasonal and uncertain
High logistics costs
Widely dispersed physical distribution
Bulky and difficult to transport
High transport costs
Biomass compositional changes with time ?
Lack of technical information on biomass Supply chain
design & management is a very weak link

Global Scene on bio-Ethanol

Source : Biofuel Digest / EU reports / US DOE reports

Problem
An abundant number of non-food cellulosic (19)
projects since 2005 have been cancelled or shutdown.
With each plant costing an average of US$ 200 million,
investors are hesitant to invest in the wrong process or
invest without large stake ownership
An examination of the current status of non-food liquid
biofuel projects suggests that there might be a series of
internal and external issues preventing the successful
commercialization of non-food cellulosic biofuels.

Results
Geographic location

Elaborated based on Wood Bioenergy U.S report from Forintek Consulting and other sources

Results
#

Project

City

State

Type

Status

1
2
3
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
19

New Page Corp.

Cello Energy
ClearFuels
Community Energy Systems
Coskata
Dynamotive
KiOR Bude
Newton Falls
Rappaport Energy
Raven Biofuels
Flambeau River Biofuels
Gulf Coast Cleveland
Rentech Rialto Project
Coskata Semi-Commercial
Rentech PDU
ZeaChem
Gulf Coast Energy

Wisconsin Rapids
Bay Minette
Collinwood
Clatskanie
Boligee
Willow Springs
Bude
Newton Falls
Longview
Ackerman
Park Falls
Cleveland
Rialto
Madison
Commerce City
Boardman
Livingston

WI
AL
TN
OR
AL
MO
MS
NY
WA
MS
WI
TN
CA
PA
CO
OR
AL

Demonstration
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Commercial
Pilot
Pilot
Pilot
Pilot

Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Cancelled
Shut down
Shut down
Shut down
Shut down

Forintek Consulting.2013. Wood Bioenergy U.S.

Results
Internal factors by type of closing
12

NUmber ot times mentioned

10

Cancelled projects
Shut Down projects

0
Product development

Strategy
Internal barrier

Technology

Results
External factors by type of closing
14

Number of times mentioned

12
10

8
6

Cancelled projects

Shut Down projects

2
0

Funding

Competition

Suppliers

Government

External barrier

Energy costs

Third party
relations

Main cellulosic EtOH running demos (>1000 t/year) in EU

Plant Owner

Location

Input Capacity
(t/year)

Output capacity
(t/year)

Clariant
(ex Sud Chemie)

Straubing, Germany

Agriculture residues, wheat straw

1000

Abengoa
Bioenergy,
Biocarburantes
Castilla y Leon,
Ebro Puleva

Babilafuente,
Salamanca, Spain

25 000 t/year (barley/wheat straw,

corn stover)

4000

Inbicon (Dong
Energy)

Kalundborg,
Denmark

30 000 t/year (wheat straw, other

lignocellulosics)

4300

Chempolis

Oulu (Chempolis
R&D Centre),
Finland

25 000 t/year (non-wood, nonfood raw material)

Running ?

formicobio TM process
Beta Renewables
(JV Chemtex
(M&G), TPG,
Novozymes)

Crescentino, Italy

Non-food biomass (giant cane and

wheat straw)

40000

Commercial scale cellulosic biofuel projects expected to be in operation by

2014.
Company

Pathway

Location

Capacity
( MGY)

Feedstock

Capital cost
(million)

KiOR

Catalytic pyrolysis &

hydrotreating to hydrocarbons.

Natchez, MS

41

Yellow pine

$ 350

Clear Fuels

Gasification & F-T

Synthesis to hydrocarbons.

Collinwood, TN

20

Woody
biomass

$ 200

Sundrop Fuels

Gasification & MTG synthesis.

Alexandria,
LA

50

Mixed biomass,
natural gas

$ 500

Zea Chem

Dilute acid hydrolysis & acetic

acid synthesis to ethanol

Boardman,
OR

25

Agricultural
residue, hybrid
poplar

$ 391

Abengoa

Enzymatic hydrolysis to ethanol

Hugoton, KS

25

Corn stover

$ 350

Beta
renewables

Enzymatic hydrolysis to ethanol

Sampson County,
NC

20

Arundo,
switchgrass

$ 170

DuPont
Biofuel
Solutions

Enzymatic hydrolysis to ethanol

Neveda, IA

25

Corn stover

$ 276

POET

Enzymatic hydrolysis to ethanol

Emmetsburg, IA

20

Corn stover,
Corn cobs

$ 250

Mascoma

Consolidated bio-processing to

Kinross, MI

40

Hardwood

$ 232

Technology PathNREL/ DOE Estimates

Indian Efforts in
Development of Cellulosic
Ethanol Technology

Indian Efforts in Cellulosic Ethanol Technology

Some basic R&D in several universities /

research labs since last decade
Isolation / evaluation of natural enzymes main
activity
Almost no work on enzyme characterisation ,
modification
All efforts isolated and none was targeted at
commercial level

Indian Efforts in Cellulosic Ethanol Technology

Serious efforts , by few players, started about

5 years ago
Ms Praj Matrix ,Pune established a 1 TPD pilot
with international collaborations (Qteros)
Good amount of data collected on pretreatment , fermentation
ICT-DBT centre in last 2 years has done
excellent basic R&D

Indian Efforts in Cellulosic Ethanol Technology

ICT-DBT developed a lab scale process based

on enzyme recirculation
Collaboration with IGL to set up 8tpd unit at
Kashipur
ICT-ICGEB-IOC combine to re-engineer microorganisms for hydrolysis & pentose
fermentation
Basic work on synthetic biology initiated

Indian Efforts in Cellulosic Ethanol Technology

IOC(R&D) designed multi-feed multi-technology

pilot with assistance of NREL,US
This facility , costing Rs 8 crores , is helping to
generate authentic data which can be safely used
in subsequent scale up
IOC-DBT centre shall in network with ICT & ICGEB
develop hydrolysis & fermentation technologies
Real life data on biomass type and availability
under fresh study
LCA of each process

IOC-DBT Pilot --Pre-Treatment Section

Conclusions
Several technology options for biomass conversion
Scale of technology depends on biomass availability
Technology based on waste gases & MSW will compete with
biomass based technologies
Technology landscape is changing very fast
Cost economics , overall LCA , sustainability will decide the
best suited technology
However , 2nd / 3rd generation liquid biofuel technologies
have a definite place in future transport fuel pool

RESEARCH TEAM

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Clarifications ??