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Special
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Written by Sabrina Deparine
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Tuesday, 31 August 2010 10:17 |
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Page views: 1984 |
The Petrobras Group, national oil company in Brazil, has recently closed a deal with KL Energy Corporation, a U.S.-based biofuel company.
The said joint development agreement states that the two companies will collaborate on producing biofuels from sugarcane bagasse. This process will utilize KL Energy’s cellulosic ethanol technology. It covers a period of 18 months.
 Petrobras will be represented by its U.S. subsidiary, Petrobras America Inc. The company will provide an estimated USD 11 million to optimize KL Energy’s demonstration facility in Wyoming. This demo facility was built in 2008 and currently utilizes ponderosa pine feedstock to produce ethanol. However, it can be modified to use other feedstock such as sugarcane bagasse. The main technology to be used for production is KL Energy’s proprietary technology called thermal-mechanical pre-treatment process. This breaks down the non-food wood and other herbaceous feedstock into components like cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin.
Petrobras will still evaluate the optimized ethanol process. Test procedures will be conducted by manufacturing cellulosic ethanol and biolignin from bagasse using multiple process alterations. Once the process is proven successful and they are able to establish which process variation can optimize the feedstock and yield, Petrobras will submit it for licensing.
Petrobras and KL Energy will also join hands in building an industrial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant using bagasse feedstock. This plant will be integrated into the Petrobras sugarcane mill in Brazil. It is targeted to commence its operations by 2013. |
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0 a.m. about 30 points, 
For example, there is no limit to the loudness