Chemical Engineering August 2011 - 16

Newsfront
Water with
salt to water
treatment
250,000 m.t./yr
crude glycerin
from biodiesel
production
infrastructures without the need for
fermentation equipment.
The building block that Avantium
has focused on to date is 2,5-furandicarboxylic
acid (FDCA), which is a
five-carbon-ring monomer that can be
used for the production of the polyester
polyethylene-furanoate (PEF). PEF is
expected to compete with polyethylene
terephthalate (PET), which is made
from the six-carbon-ring monomer
purified terephthalic acid (PTA), in
applications such as beverage bottles,
other packaging materials, diapers,
carpets and textiles.
Frank Roerink, Avantium's CFO,
says that PEF can compete with PET
on both price and performance, while
offering a better environmental footprint,
in part because it is bio-based
and 100% recyclable. In fact, PEF is
said to be superior to PET in several
properties, including lower permeability
of oxygen, CO2 and water, and an
enhanced ability to withstand heat.
Roerink says that the cost to produce
FDCA is expected to be below $1,200
per metric ton (m.t.) when produced
on a commercial scale, whereas the
current price of PTA is $1,500/m.t.,
with a five-year trading average of
about $1,200/m.t.
Avantium announced in June that
it has raised €30 million for the construction
and operation of a pilot plant
in Geleen, the Netherlands, and for
the development of materials based
on YXY building blocks. This funding
includes €25 million from investors,
as well as a €5-million subsidy
from the Dutch Ministry of Economy,
Agriculture and Innovation. The pilot
plant is expected to yield around 40
m.t./yr of FDCA in 2011, and a plan is
under review to go to a larger scale in
2013. The goal of the pilot plant is to
prove the process, as well as to supply
material for application development.
Roerink explains that Avantium's
business model is as a technology
provider, so they would not produce
PEF themselves, but would license
the technology for it.
The company is also looking to pursue
other YXY-based materials, such
as polyamides (nylons and engineering
plastics), polyurethanes (foams),
thermosets (resins, coatings and adhesives)
and plasticizers.
Renewable paths to
biomethanol
BioMCN (Delfzijl, the
Netherlands; www.biomcn.
eu) has developed a patented
process to produce
biomethanol from crude
glycerin. Since crude glycerin
is a byproduct of
biodiesel production, and
that production has been
increasing, new outlets for
glycerin use are welcome
(For more on glycerin, see
Outlets for Glycerin, Chem. Eng., September
2007, pp. 31-37). According
to BioMCN, they are the first in the
world to produce and sell industrial
quantities of high-quality biomethanol,
and the largest second-generation
biofuels producer in the world.
Rob Voncken, CEO of BioMCN, deCentrifuge
200,000
m.t./yr
of
purified
glycerin
(99.9%)
Pre-heater
400,000 m.t./yr
methanol, half
of which is
biomethanol
Steam reformer
Dry NaCl
for road
treatment
Natural gas
(220 million
Nm3/yr) and
catalyst
Figure 3. BioMCN produces industrial quantities
of biomethanol from second-generation feedstocks
Schematic of BioMCN Process for Biomethanol
fines first-generation biofuels as those
made from crops, and second generation
as those made from waste or residue
raw materials. He explains that
crude glycerin is considered a residue
as defined by the European Union's
Renewable Energy Directive (RED)
and that the RED sets an ambitious
target for the E.U.: that by 2020, at
least 10% of energy used in transportation
will be from renewable resources.
While introduced in 2008, the
RED has not yet been implemented.
The methanol market, however, is developing
quickly in countries such as
China, where most of the automobiles
are multi-fuel (also called flexi-fuel)
and can use methanol or ethanol, says
Voncken. The biomethanol produced
by BioMCN has the same specifications
as methanol, so there is a low
introduction barrier to users.
In 2006, BioMCN purchased a conventional
methanol plant in the northern
part of the Netherlands. The traditional
method for making methanol at
that plant was to convert non-renewable
natural gas. BioMCN modified
the existing steam reformers to partly
replace natural gas with glycerin as a
raw material.
In BioMCN's process, the crude
glycerin is first purified by distillation,
and then pre-heated before adding
it to the steam reformer (Figure
3). After a pilot-scale demonstration
in 2008, commercial-scale production
16 ChemiCal engineering www.Che.Com august 2011
started in 2009. The current capacity
for methanol production at Delfzijl is
400,000 m.t./yr, half of which (200,000
m.t./yr) is biomethanol. An increased
capacity to a total of 400,000 m.t./yr
of biomethanol is planned by 2013.
BioMCN has also developed its own
catalyst, which it expects to patent.
Woodspirit. Another project in the
early stages for BioMCN involves producing
biomethanol from waste wood,
via a bio-syngas route. To do this, the
company together with the Investment
and Development Agency of North
Netherlands (NOM), Linde, Siemens
and Visser Smit Hanab have formed
a consortium that plans to build " the
world's largest " biomass refinery next
to the existing biomethanol plant in
Delfzijl. The planned biomass refinery
will process approximately 1.5 million
m.t. of residual wood to yield more
than 400,000 m.t./yr of second-generation
biomethanol. Termed, " Woodspirit " ,
the project has been selected
as one of three projects submitted by
the Netherlands to the E.U. for the
European NER300 investment subsidy
program, which aims to stimulate
investments in innovative, renewable
energy technology and carbon capture
and storage (CCS).
" We appreciate the importance that
the European Committee attaches to
the reduction of CO2 emissions and
the stimulus to produce and use renewable
energy. With this consortium
we want to make a significant contribution
to the availability of second
generation biofuels throughout Europe " ,
says Voncken. He expects that
decisions about which projects are
chosen for the subsidy will be made in
the second quarter of 2012.
■
Dorothy Lozowski
(DL 7/2011)
Vacuum distillation
http://www.biomcn http://www.Che.Com
Chemical Engineering August 2011

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