There was lots of great content presented by awesome speakers this year at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo. One that sticks in my mind happened before lunch on June 3, the last day of the conference, and was entitled Lignocellulose’s Sweet Side: Converting Biomass Feedstocks into More Easily Processed Sugar Streams. Although I was familiar with all but one of the companies or organizations represented on the panel, each one of the speakers spoke about something that make me realize there’s always more to the story.

Here they are, in order of how they presented.

No. 1

Daniel Hayes, director of Celignis Limited, talked about using near infrared spectroscopy for rapid analysis of cellulosic feedstocks. He summarized the pros and cons of using chemical analysis, which is the most accurate method but is expensive and takes about 2 weeks, compared to the method used by Celignis, which the company calls a one-day analysis of biomass.

The thing I realized while I listened to this presentation was that I was missing a step in my head. I guess I just assumed that pilot testing of biomass, ie, actually fermenting it to produce cellulosic ethanol, was the first step to determining if it was a good feedstock candidate. It was kind of one of those duh moments when I learned that it’s wise to narrow down the list with laboratory analysis before the fermentation step. After all, the number of possible feedstock options is really only limited by your imagination, as anything made up of plant material, including Tim Hortons coffee cups and kudzu vine, could potentially be used to make cellulosic ethanol. But just because it could be fermented into ethanol doesn’t mean it’s the best candidate for the job. Hayes addressed this when he said sometimes clients get so excited about a particular feedstock they get upset when the analysis comes back with unfavorable results.

No. 2 

Sabrina Trupia, research director at the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center, offered me my next aha moment. I’ve written about research NCERC conducted on corn fiber to cellulosic ethanol but I didn’t know until last week that work is also ongoing on corn stover.  Again, I have to say, I felt a little silly. Of course it makes sense that a research center that focuses on corn-ethanol would also study corn stover. It’s the same plant as the corn kernels, just a different part of the plant!

Trupia talked about a stover particle size study that revealed milling comes with increased cost and doesn’t compensate for factors like temperature and enzyme loading.  NCERC researchers have also completed trial fermentations of blended stover and corn mash, which they plan to repeat with higher amounts of corn stover. They are also working on adding corn kernel fiber to a cellulosic blend, different cellulosic feedstock pretreatments and more.

No. 3 

Jack Baron, president of Sweetwater Energy, also gave an interesting presentation. He talked about the many feedstocks that the company has evaluated and emphasized what the most important variable in selecting a feedstock. “Price doesn’t’ matter if it’s not fermentable,” he said.

My colleauges and I have written about Sweetwater multiple times in the past, including the agreements the company has with Pacific Ethanol Inc., Ace Ethanol LLC and Front Range Energy LLC. But somehow it was the slide in Baron’s presentation, visually illustrating the partnerships it has formed with those producers that made me realize—or perhaps—re-realize that the company is poised for some very exciting things, hopefully in the not –too distant future.

No. 4

But it was the last presenter that really grabbed my attention. I knew GreenField Specialty Alcohols Inc. was doing some cool things but I wasn’t aware of everything mentioned by Barry Wortzman, vice president of business development for the Canadian-based company. Back in 2013, I wrote about the company’s innovative partnership with a tomato producing greenhouse, which has continued to scale up since that time. 

But I didn’t know the company is currently constructing an aerobic digester at the site of one of its ethanol plants and uses compressed natural gas to power another ethanol plant plus provide steam to a neighboring company’s facility. I’ve written stories about the technologies, combined heat and power as well as anaerobic digestion, which both have great promise but aren’t yet widely utilized. Because of that, my ears perked up when he talked about that for sure.

But that’s not all. Greenfield has also developed and is currently testing a pretreatment process that uses an extruder to recover sugars from cellulosic materials. The company is currently in the demonstration phase and plans to use the technology for its own use as well as offer it to third parties globally. The process was developed over the last eight years with the help of a team of 15 scientists, lab technicians, engineers and operators, Wortzman said.

Of course it makes complete sense that I’m going to learn a lot of new things at FEW. I have no illusions that I know everything there is to know about this subject. In fact, I don’t believe I ever will. There are far too many interesting and exciting things going on within both the first generation and second generation ethanol industries, for me to ever claim in done learning. And that’s part of what makes my job fun.