Lignol Innovations Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lignol Energy Corp., recently completed the first phase of a major body of work with Novozymes in producing cellulosic ethanol at Lignol’s pilot-scale biorefinery. (Earlier post.)
Lignol and Novozymes had previously announced a joint research and development agreement to make biofuel from wood chips and forestry waste with the aim of producing cellulosic ethanol at production costs competitive with gasoline and corn ethanol. The first phase of the project included producing cellulosic ethanol from hardwood at the pilot-scale biorefinery.
These joint efforts resulted in the achievement of interim targets, establishing baseline production costs for the next phase of the project which will focus on enzyme and substrate optimization with the objective of achieving the overall cost reduction targets.
The achievement of this operational milestone with Novozymes is an important accomplishment and puts us one step closer to meeting our operating cost targets for a commercial biorefinery. Over the coming months we will continue to work closely with Novozymes with the objective of further reducing the cost of producing cellulosic ethanol from hardwoods and laying the foundation for large scale commercial deployment.
—Ross MacLachlan, President and CEO of Lignol
Lignol is a Canadian company undertaking the development of biorefining technologies for the production of advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals from non-food cellulosic biomass feedstocks. Lignol”‘s modified solvent based pre-treatment technology facilitates the rapid, high-yield conversion of cellulose to ethanol and the production of value-added biochemical co-products, including high purity HP-L lignin.