Petrobras joins cellulosic ethanol project

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 26 -- Petrobras America has entered a joint development agreement with KL Energy Corp., Rapid City, SD, to develop technology for producing ethanol from sugarcane bagasse.

Petrobras will provide $11 million to adapt a KL Energy demonstration facility in Upton, Wyo., to the use of bagasse with an enhancement of technology now testing ethanol production from waste wood.

The companies agreed to jointly work toward an industrial-scale bagasse-based cellulosic ethanol plant at a Petrobras Group sugarcane mill in Brazil.

KL Energy calls its Upton demonstration plant one of the first of its kind to produce cellulose-based ethanol and biolignin from wood waste. The facility uses a proprietary “thermomechanical pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis process.”