Sucrose is the main component of sugar cane and sugar beet.
The adaptation of sucrose to the process is one of the first technical milestones towards building a full-scale bio-isobutene commercial plant.
Global Bioenergies has created a joint venture with French sugar producer Cristal Union, IBN-One, to build and operate the bio-isobutene plant by 2018.
The plant would convert sugar beet-derived sucrose into 50,000t of bio-isobutene annually.
Since 2008, Global Bioenergies has been working on a new process that could convert renewable resources into isobutene, a molecule prominently used in the petrochemical industry.
Global Bioenergies COO Frédéric Pâques said: "It is the first time that isobutene, a key hydrocarbon used in fuels and materials and traditional extracted from fossil oil, is produced from sugar beet-derived sucrose by fermentation."
The company is using a synthetic biology approach to utilize sucrose as feedstock for the production of isobutene strain.
Global Bioenergies CEO Marc Delcourt said: "Detaining a robust sucrose-utilizing strain is a crucial step forward in the company’s efforts to diversify its accessible feedstock.
"This is key to ensure global deployment of the technology. Whereas glucose is the major North-American feedstock, sucrose is abundant in Europe and South-America."
The company is also planning to develop new biological modules with an aim to diversify the resources compatible with the process.
In May, Global Bioenergies has delivered the first batch of renewable isobutene to chemicals and advanced materials company Arkema from an industrial pilot installed on the Pomacle-Bazancourt agro-industrial site near Reims in France.
The pilot plant converted wheat starch-derived glucose into gaseous isobutene.
Image: Global Bioenergies will build a plant that will produce isobutene from sugar beet-derived sucrose. Photo: courtesy of 4028mdk09.
