Frequently asked questions
| Q: What is the joint venture between DuPont and Danisco? A. DuPont and Danisco have created a 50/50 joint venture to combine their technology expertise and to commercialize integrated cellulosic ethanol biorefinery systems on a variety of biomass feedstocks around the world. Q. What is an “integrated cellulosic ethanol biorefinery system”? A. The great challenge facing the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol is the integration of three distinct unit operations, namely, pretreatment, enzyme hydrolysis and fermentation to ethanol. Each of these unit operations has distinct technical challenges. Numerous companies have attacked the problem in one or more of the unit operations but very few have brought a “system” approach to solving the problem in an integrated manner. Since the performance of each unit operation is dependent on the other, optimizing each one for the purpose of efficient ethanol production requires trade offs between and co-evolution of every one. Q. What is each partner bringing to the joint venture (JV)? A. DuPont is bringing its integrated biorefinery design and its expertise in engineering, pretreatment, and dual sugar fermentation. Genencor, a division of Danisco, is bringing its expertise in biomass enzymes and low cost enzyme production. Q. How much will the partners invest? A. The partners have agreed to an initial three year funding of US $140 million. This will cover the further development of the technology and the construction of pilot plants. The initial plant will be in the USA and based on corn cobs and corn stover as the feedstock. Q. What biomass feedstock will the joint venture’s biorefinery use? A. The JV will work on all of the major biomass sources, namely, corn stover, wheat straw, sugar cane bagasse, a variety of energy crops, and other biomass sources. The first pilot plant will be deployed on non-food fractions of the corn crop in the USA. Advance work has been done on all of the other feedstocks. Q. What is the long term vision for the joint venture? A. The JV is a powerhouse of discovery, development, and engineering. It will continue to develop and improve its integrated solutions and support its licensees around the world by sharing new technology and best practices and providing ongoing technical support and trouble shooting. Q. When will the first pilot plant be built? And where? A. We expect the USA pilot plant to go into operation in about a year. Additional pilot and demonstration plants will be determined in the future. Q. What is the rationale for choosing a pilot plant in the US? A. All feedstocks in all regions may be of future interest. The joint venture will focus first where the market is the most developed – corn fractions (cob, fiber and stover) in North America. The US currently has a level of government support to encourage quick commercialization of the technology. Q. When will you build demonstration plants? A. We will begin the final design of the demonstration plants about a year after the pilot plants begin operation. The demo plants will be scaled and sited in such a way as to be used for marketing and sales support as well as for ongoing development in its region. Q. What is the purpose of building the pilot plants? A. The plants will allow us to test the production processes of cellulosic ethanol and resolve engineering challenges as we scale-up the process from bench scale to commercial scale. Q. Why is this investment a good idea for both partners? A. Each company has been investing in cellulosic ethanol development for years and each has made excellent progress. Yet, both companies understand that significant work has to be done before a commercially viable technology solution is ready for the market. In order to gain from each others’ complementary expertise, the companies have decided the best and fastest way to a winning position is via this joint venture. Q. What makes DuPont and Danisco good partners? A. Each company has devoted considerable effort to the commercialization of this technology, and together will be able to tackle the challenge of integrating multiple, inter-related, single unit operations into a robust solution required by a system-level approach. The innovation expertise of the two companies in this area is very complementary. And, most importantly, the companies have a long and successful history of joint development in industrial biotechnology. They shared the US EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Award in 2003 for their joint development effort of the fermentation biocatalyst that produces Bio-PDO™ (propanediol), which has since been commercialized. Q. Will the joint venture actually be building and even operating cellulosic ethanol plants in the future? A. The joint venture will license its technology package directly to ethanol producers for deployment in the US and around the world. In addition, DuPont and Danisco may establish regional cellulosic ethanol companies. These regional ethanol companies will invest in equity interests with strategic partners, including ethanol producers and energy companies, to enable the rapid deployment of the JV’s cellulosic ethanol technology at commercial scale. The joint venture technology package can be used both as a “bolt-on” to an existing ethanol plant -- expanding its capacity to accept cellulosic feedstocks -- or the package can be the design basis for a stand alone cellulosic ethanol facility. Q. How will the joint venture deploy this technology? Where and when? A. The JV will deploy the technology through licenses to regional ethanol companies in the main regions around the world – USA, Brazil, EU, China and India are initial targets. Q. What will happen to the partners’ respective IP for cellulosic ethanol? A.Genencor will continue to develop and sell biomass enzymes to others outside the JV. DuPont will continue to operate its partnership with BP on biobutanol and may offer its ethanologen technology to interested parties. Each partner will transfer IP rights to JV as they would be required to optimize an integrated solution for cellulosic ethanol. Q. Does the joint venture affect existing business or government partnerships or contracts for either partner? A. No. We believe that our respective mutual government partners will see real value in our joining forces to develop and commercialize economically viable cellulosic ethanol technology. |
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DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol Chooses Chicago Area for Global Headquarters, Announces Management Team |
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