US-based TetraVitae Bioscience has successfully completed a demonstration of its process to produce renewable n-butanol in a corn dry-mill pilot plant.
The demonstration is a milestone in creating economically competitive renewable n-butanol for the coatings, plastics, personal care, and packaging industries.
TetraVitae CEO Jay Kouba said corn dry-mills offer the most direct, capital efficient, and low-cost route to large-scale production of renewable chemicals in North America.
In the demonstration, TetraVitae worked with The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) to retrofit the fully integrated corn dry-mill pilot plant to enable it to run TetraVitae’s technology.
As expected, the technology performed well, producing n-butanol, acetone, and distillers grains, and validating that the production process is economically competitive.
Besides, TetraVitae has demonstrated product purification.
Working with the University of Texas in Austin’s Separations Research Program, the company took the raw chemical products produced at NCERC and produced purified n-butanol and acetone in a continuous distillation.