By Greentech Lead America: Sundrop Fuels, a drop-in
advanced biofuels company, has partnered with ThyssenKrupp Uhde, technology and
engineering supplier, to construct a commercial “green gasoline” production
facility. The construction of the plant will begin late this year.
Both companies have signed a comprehensive “Front End
Engineering and Licensing Agreement”. More than 70 engineers from the two
companies are now working together to complete designs for the Sundrop Fuels
plant. The plant will have a capacity of about 3,500 barrels of renewable
gasoline per day.
The plant is expected to yield up to 50 million gallons
of renewable gasoline annually while also serving as proving ground for Sundrop
Fuels’ proprietary biomass conversion technologies that will be used for future
large-scale facilities.
Sundrop Fuels will convert sustainable forest residues and thinnings as
feedstock combined with natural gas into bio-based “green gasoline” by using a process
that integrates gasification, gas purification, methanol synthesis and a
methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) process.
Sundrop Fuels will deploy ThyssenKrupp Uhde’s High
Temperature Winkler (HTW) gasification process, coupled with other
well-established technologies for gas cleanup, methanol synthesis, and the MTG
conversion.
“Sundrop Fuels’ partnership with ThyssenKrupp Uhde
accelerates our ability to contribute to the nation’s renewable fuels goals
while moving toward mass-scale green gasoline factories that will improve the
environment, create jobs and further our nation’s energy independence,” said
Wayne Simmons, chief executive officer, Sundrop Fuels.
Sundrop Fuels will utilize RP Reactor technology to
process forbiomass conversion. RP Reactor is an
ultrahigh-temperature technology that generates the highest fuel energy yield
per ton of biomass of any biofuels process available.
“This effort represents the best possible use of today’s
technology and natural resources to meet tomorrow’s growing need for
affordable, cleanly produced transportation fuel,” Simmons added.
Sundrop Fuels plans to increase production capacity more
than one billion gallons by 2020.