Making ethanol

DuPont and Genencor, a division of Danisco, are to form DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol, a 50/50 global joint venture that will develop and commercialise an economical process for the production of cellulosic ethanol - a next generation biofuel produced from non-food sources.

The partners plan an initial three-year investment of $140m, which will initially target corn stover and sugar cane bagasse. Future targets will include multiple ligno-cellulosic feedstocks including wheat straw, a variety of energy crops and other biomass sources.

Scientists at DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol aim to maximise the efficiency and lower the overall system cost of ethanol production by shrinking several existing process steps into one. To do so, the joint venture will scale up a production process based on proprietary DuPont pretreatment and ethanologen technologies with enzyme technology from Genencor.

A pilot plant should become operational in 2009, and the first commercial-scale demonstration facility will be operational within the next three years.