18-01: Restarting the Chinese biobutanol industry

In the past decade, a number of large commercial biobutanol plants have been built in China, with most designed to run the Clostridial acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) process with corn as a feedstock.  Increasing corn prices made the Clostridial ABE process economically unfeasible so that many of the plants that were built have lain dormant for several years and other planned builds have been shelved.  By the end of 2011 there was approximately 450,000 tonnes per annum of solvent production capacity in China, but with little to no active production.  

Green Biologics Ltd. has been working closely with Laihe Songyuan Chemical Ltd. to reinvigorate the Chinese biobutanol industry through better use of sustainable feedstocks, better use of existing plant, and the utilisation of improved, robust microorganisms.  The process improvements have led to more attractive economics leading to the commercialization of biobutanol manufacturing in China.  In this paper we will report on the history of the collaboration, recent developments and future plans.