7-05: Ethanol from wheat straw – a reality in Denmark from November 2009

In Denmark, DONG Energy subsidiary Inbicon is constructing a plant to demonstrate their proprietary process for conversion of wheat straw to ethanol to be ready for the Copenhagen Climate Summit late 2009. From 30,000 tonnes of wheat straw annually, the plant will produce 1.43 mill. gallon ethanol, 8,250 tonnes of biopellets and 11,100 tonnes of cattle feed. The investment is $56 mill. of which $14 mill. is funded by the Danish government.

In the 1990’s, Danish power companies started using biomass for power production. In 2002, a R&D project (”Co-production biofuels”) partly funded by the European Commission was initiated to extract more value of the straw. Several technological breakthroughs were achieved and a 1 ton/hr straw pilot plant was inaugurated in 2005. Based on the success of the project, the subsidiary Inbicon was formed to commercialize the technology.

The core technology, a hydrothermal pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis, works at high dry matter content, enabling efficient liquefaction with low enzyme doses, a robust fermentation and resulting high ethanol concentration. In addition to ethanol, the process produces a supreme dry biofuel suitable for bio pellets and a C5-molasses, which can be used for animal feed or ethanol production with suitable organisms.

The demonstration plant is the first stage of the Inbicon Biomass Technology Campus. Additional technologies for production of high value products from biomass will be developed, tested and added to the ethanol facility, making the plant an industrial scale biorefinery.