The new facility, which is set for completion in October 2008, will confirm the scaled-up, commercial feasibility of the company’s MixAlco technology, which converts readily-available, low-cost, non-food biomass into industrial chemicals and transportation fuels.
When completed, the new semi-works facility will have the loading capacity of 400 dry tons of biomass, equal to a loading rate of five dry tons per day. The company will use sorghum as the primary feedstock with the objective of producing organic salts and converting them to ketones.
The MixAlco technology has been successfully tested for the past three years at Terrabon’s pilot plant in College Station, Texas. The pilot plant can process up to 200 dry pounds per day of biomass from such feedstocks as waste paper and chicken manure.
Gary Luce, CEO of Terrabon, said: We are pleased with the speed and efficiency with which this facility has been developed and look forward to bringing it on line by year-end.
