The American company Terrabon produces high-octane green gasoline

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On July 30, 2009, the U.S. company Terrabon announced that it had produced high-octane \"green gasoline\" from non-food biomass at its advanced biofuel research facility in Bryan, Texas. This gasoline is produced through biomass pretreatment and fermentation using Terrabon’s patented MixAlco technology. This process generates organic salts, which can be converted into similar compounds and further transformed into high-octane gasoline. Terrabon stated that the production of this green gasoline builds on 15 years of research and testing experience by the company’s team. The successful production of green gasoline represents an important milestone for Terrabon Company as well as for the development of renewable energy sources, and it is expected to help the United States reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Previously, the MixAlco technology has been tested in laboratories and pilot-scale facilities; it can be used to convert biomass into chemicals, which can then be processed into gasoline. It has been confirmed that the MixAlco technology can be used for the commercial-scale production of gasoline. The distillation range distribution of this gasoline fuel is similar to that of the gasoline produced by refineries from catalytic cracking (FCC) units, with FCC gasoline accounting for about 40% of the U.S. gasoline supply. However, an important advantage of this green gasoline is that its sulfur content is four times lower than that of hydrogenated FCC gasoline, and its octane rating is much higher. Terrabon states that the gasoline produced by this device has a higher octane rating than high-quality gasoline, and it can be mixed directly with petroleum-based fuel products from refineries without further processing. Terrabon has signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to receive $25 million in funding for the construction and operation of a bio-refinery with a capacity of 55 tons per day in Port Arthur, Texas. This refinery will produce 1.3 million gallons of green gasoline per year at a Valero Energy refinery. Construction of this bio-refinery is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2010, with commercial operation set to start in the second half of 2011. The company has also received funding from the Texas Emerging Technologies Fund to support the conversion of municipal solid waste (MSW) into green gasoline. It has been proven that the MixAlco technology is an advanced bio-refining process that can convert low-cost, suitable non-edible, non-fruiting biomass into transportation fuel. The biomass that can be used as raw material in this process includes municipal solid waste (MSW), sludge from sewage treatment plants, forest product residues such as sawdust, pulp, and other wooden wastes, as well as non-food energy crops such as sweet sorghum. Since the raw material used in this conversion process is non-fruiting biomass, Terrabon expects that the investment cost for facilities built using MixAlco technology will be lower than that of other technologies. Based on a plant capacity of 220 dry tons per day of organic feedstock, and using a transportation cost of $10.00 per ton for the sorted MSW feedstock, the cost of producing 5.5 million gallons per year of renewable gasoline using Terrabon’s MixAlco technology is approximately $1.75 to $2.00 per gallon. This price range does not yet include the economic subsidy of $1.01 per gallon in the form of tax incentives for biofuels.