Iogen's Cellulose Technology Ethanol Plant Reaching World's First Production Levels

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Privately held technology development firm, Iogen Corporation (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) has successfully reached the world's highest production levels of ethanol from cellulose materials at a new $23 million technology demonstration plant located in Ottawa, Canada.

The company has been operating the pilot scale facility since January of 2002 and has been running small batches of wheat straw feedstock through the plant and is now successfully processing the material at a 30 ton per week level that is getting close to the plant's design level of 40 tons per week.

Plans are to hit an annual ethanol production number somewhere in the range of 320,000 liters or 84,500 gallons once the feedstock supply becomes more consistent.

The company has developed a line of modern enzyme technology, used in the conversion of cellulose to sugar during the ethanol production process, that it hopes to sell along with its ethanol technology once it becomes licensed.

Jay Brunson, Synthetic Fuels Manager for Industrialinfo.com adds, "If all goes well with Iogen's pilot plant and the company's "EcoEthanol" licensed technology, we could see construction of a 50 million gallon per year commercial scale cellulose-to-ethanol plant in North America by 2005. This would change the ethanol production landscape dramatically."

Iogen has big oil backing them as well. Back in May of last year, Shell Oil Products, a division of Royal Dutch/Shell Group (The Hague, Netherlands) purchased a $29 million equity stake in the Canadian company.

Iogen has been involved in technology development for more than 25 years. The company has developed a broad portfolio of technology and experience relating to the processing of plant fiber. They now own and operate the world's first and only demonstration-scale BioEthanol facility and operate a large-scale state-of-the-art enzyme manufacturing facility in Ottawa serving pulp and paper, textile, and animal feed markets.

For a unique, half hour discussion focusing on spending trends in the synthetic fuels industry, with Jay Brunson from Industrialinfo.com tune in to Crazy Al's Radio Party Industry Today segment, Monday morning February 10, 2003 at 8:30 am (EST). The radio show can be accessed from any computer at Radio Show.