Thursday, May 5, 2011: 1:30 PM
Willow A-B, 2nd fl (Sheraton Seattle)
Every year in the US, 140 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) is sent to landfill. Together, TMO Renewables Ltd, the developer of a new process for converting biomass into fuel ethanol, and Fiberight LLC, a clean technology company, have formed a synergistic partnership to target conversion of 31 million tons of the organic waste to 2.6 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol. The plants will combine Fiberight’s MSW separation and purification process, which delivers a clean fibre stream from waste materials, with the TMO integrated process, which delivers an optimised waste biomass conversion to ethanol utilising proprietary pre-treatment and high solids enzymatic hydrolysis systems together with the TMO patented thermophilic bacterium, Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius ethanologen, TM242.
This presentation will focus on the progress achieved at TMO with material supplied by Fiberight, from the initial development program with MSW and paper pulp waste streams resulting in a greater than three-fold improvement in ethanol productivity, to the definition of process variables important for driving success at scale. We will also update on the progress demonstrating scale-up of the waste to ethanol process in the TMO pilot plant located in Guildford, UK.