Süd-Chemie builds large facility for Biofuels in East Bavaria
The globally active company Süd-Chemie AG is, with a turnover of 1.1 billion Euro and 6,500 employees at 80 production and distribution locations, a worldwide-leading special chemical company for amongst other things catalysts for the chemical, petrochemical and refinery industries, as well as hydrogen production and gas purification. The first generation biofuels being used today are manufactured exclusively from oil, starch or sugar-containing plant components, for example biodiesel from rapeseed oil or bioethanol from starch or sugar. With the manufacture of second generation biofuels, on the other hand, the starch and oil components of the plant are not used, but rather only the cellulose-containing parts of the plants. This way more fuel is obtained due to the higher energy yield. Additionally fuel does not compete with human food or animal feed, because the plants containing starch, such as the corn kernels, can still be used for food production.
The new facility is being built in the vicinity of the new BioCampus in Straubing, which is the centre for renewable raw materials in Bavaria. At the end of 2011 up to 2000 tonnes of bioethanol fuel derived from agricultural residual substances such as crop straw will be manufactured there yearly. A new process technique is underway, having been tested since the start of 2009 in a pilot plant by Süd-Chemie. Here cellulose-based plant components, such as wheat and maize straw or so-called bagasse from sugar cane with the aid of biotechnologically manufactured enzymes are initially converted to elements of sugars, from which then the fuel bioethanol is obtained. In the process both the cellulose and hemicellulose of the plants are converted to ethanol. This allows an up to 50 percent increase of ethanol production compared with regular technology.
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