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Woodland Biofuels - Engineering Almost Complete

One of the world’s first commercial syngas cellulose ethanol plants is a lot closer to reality as Woodland Biofuels Inc. of Mississauga, ON completes detailed engineering work on a wood waste fed, 76 million litre/year ethanol facility expected to be built in Atlantic Canada and operational by late 2009.

Woodland is a recently announced recipient of $9.8 million in assistance from Sustainable Development Technology Canada towards the construction and testing of such a facility – one whose patented Catalyzed Pressure Reduction technology produces twice as much ethanol from the same amount of feedstock as any other conversion technology, claims the company.

Forest, agricultural or other sources of biomass, including MSW and treatment-plant bio-solids, can be used in a pyrolytic operation which firsts gasifies the material, then cleans and conditions the syn-gas before putting it through a series of catalytic reactions.

“The conversion and selectivity rates of these reactions are part of what makes our technology work better than anything else we have seen,” states company president, Greg Nuttall.

Such a process has the capacity to produce a variety of products, from ethanol and methanol to acetic acid, VAM (vinyl acetate monomer), formaldehyde, distillation water, waste heat and green electricity. Woodland is hoping its upcoming installation will show how, “Engineered around a closed loop concept, the plants are designed to be extremely efficient, which in turn makes their operation highly cost effective.”

Word of the company’s technology has already spread far enough, that Nuttall notes, “Even before the new U.S. Energy Act, we were already fortunate enough to have more opportunities than we can possibly pursue.”

Woodland has joined up with a formidable engineering partner, Thermo Design Engineering of Edmonton, whose Alberta pre-fabrication site and others around the world will serve as a staging area for each new installation.

Nuttall is very pleased with how Woodland’s prospects are shaping up. “We have signed a multi-plant, multi-year letter of intent with one of the biggest ethanol producers in the world, located in the U.S.,” he says.

“This company has looked at every cellulosic ethanol technology out there and they believe our process is the best.”

“The Atlantic Canada plant will be the first wood waste to ethanol plant using our CPR technology and we expect the U.S. plant to be the first crop waste to ethanol plant to use it. We are working on closing that deal, right now.”