Posted Sept. 29, 2010

When Trillium FiberFuels Inc. first started investigating cellulosic ethanol, it was assumed that it could select a technology, fire it up and start cranking out ethanol. Then company founders realized—there really is no off-the-shelf technology for cellulosic ethanol production. Not yet anyway. "That was a little silly in retrospect," said Chris Beatty, president and one of four founding members of the company.

Today, the Oregon-based company is working with an unidentified out-of-state pulp and paper mill in an attempt to crack the xylose utilization question. The companies hammered out an agreement in which the pulp and paper mill provides a waste product, hemicellulose, to the Corvallis, Ore., Trillium lab. Currently, researchers are conducting tests on 10 liters at a time, with plans to ramp up to 200 liters before Christmas and 4,000 liters early next year. "We're all hovering around it like mother hens, because this is a big deal for us," Beatty said.

There has been a great deal of effort—with some success—at genetically engineering yeast to utilize xylose, Beatty said. Trillium, however, is looking for a more robust yeast solution. "What we're trying to do is use conventional yeast that is still tough and basically change the food so they can use it," he said.

The company started with an industrial enzyme that's used to make high fructose corn syrup. The enzyme, which is not genetically modified, converts xylose, a native sugar, to xylulose. That small transformation happens without adding or taking away anything, but simply rearranging, Beatty said. Taking that known science, which has been in use for 20 years, the company is working on perfecting its simultaneous isomerization, or SIS. The company's patent-pending process is about converting sugar to a usable food for yeast and fermenting it at the same time, he said.

Trillium is halfway through a U.S. DOE grant period and is using $750,000 it was awarded in 2009 to conduct its research. Working with the pulp and paper mill is a perfect extension of that research. At some point, if all goes well, the idea is to co-locate a pilot plant at the pulp and paper mill. "They are very interested in that," he said.

Unlike building a greenfield cellulosic ethanol plant, co-locating with another facility is an attractive way to prove a technology and gather data with a much smaller capital expenditure, Beatty said. Mounting a module on the side of an existing factory is a much smaller hurtle because it takes advantage of existing infrastructure, such as utilities, water, steam and power. "That really helps with overall project cost," he said.

Trillium hopes to someday license its technology to others interested in producing cellulosic ethanol. The group hasn't lost interest in actually producing it themselves, however. The original idea came about because the region of Oregon that Trillium is located produces a lot of grass straw, which they feel would be an ideal ethanol feedstock. Linn County, which is adjacent the county Trillium is located in, is the grass seed capital of the world. "We see our feedstock every day," Beatty said.

Legislation in 2009 phased out the burning of grass straw, which means there's excess straw that could be converted into cellulosic ethanol. Another positive is that collection infrastructure already exists because the straw is currently baled and sold into foreign markets, among other uses.