Sud-Chemie invests €28m in second-generation biofuels plant

21 July 2010 09:44  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Sud-Chemie will invest €28m ($36m) in a 2,000 tonne/year second-generation biofuels demonstration plant in Munich, Germany, for start-up in 2011, the specialty chemicals company said on Wednesday.

The plant, Germany’s largest plant to date for the production of cellulose ethanol, will use biotechnological processes to produce bioethanol fuel from agricultural waste, such as cereal straw.

The €28m project comprises an investment of some €16m, as well as accompanying research projects amounting to around €12m, Sud-Chemie said.

The Bavarian State Government and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will subsidise the projects with €5m.

Sud-Chemie said it planned to start up the plant, located in the immediate vicinity of the new Bavarian BioCampus in Straubing, at the end of 2011.

"By launching construction of this demonstration plant for our so-called sunliquid technology, we continue to pursue our strategy of developing to market maturity sustainable manufacturing processes for climate-friendly biofuels and chemicals, based on leading expertise in the fields of catalysis, biocatalysis and process engineering," said Sud-Chemie´s managing board chairman Gunter von Au.

The company said this demonstration plant would represent a scaled-down version of the entire integrated manufacturing process required to convert cellulosic plant residue into bioethanol.

($1 = €0.78)

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By: Hilde Ovrebekk
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