The Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F), US Dept. of Energy and Israel's Ministry of National Infrastructure have awarded $900,000 to Herzliya based biofuel company HCL Cleantech Ltd. and the US Virent Energy Systems Inc. The grant will support Virent's conversion of HCL's pine tree sugars into hydrocarbon fuels and products that can be sustainable, cost-effective and compatible with existing infrastructure.
The grant supports almost half of the $2.1 million total project cost.
The project's objective is to address the key hurdles limiting the market acceptance of biofuels and bioproducts made from cellulosic feedstocks: price, performance, and infrastructure compatibility.
The project combines HCL CleanTech's proprietary conversion technologies that produce cost-effective non-food sugars with Virent's innovative BioForming technology that converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules like those now refined from petroleum.
HCL CleanTech's pioneering technology builds on a proven industrial process, significantly improving the economics of converting biomass into refined sugars, de-acidified lignin and tall oils. The process chemistry works at low temperature and atmospheric pressure, resulting in very few degradation products and significantly lower energy and water consumption. These sugars can be utilized by Virent's process to make fungible hydrocarbons that can be used as chemicals or seamlessly blended to make premium 'drop in' fuels for car, truck, train, and air transportation. Virent's fuel products can readily enter the market using existing pipelines to power today's vehicles at high blend rates.
As part of the BIRD project, HCL CleanTech will also provide pine sugars to a leading biopolymer producer for evaluating fermentation into hydrocolloids that historically are produced from cane or corn sugars for use in a broad range of personal care, food and beverage applications.
HCL CEO Eran Baniel said, "We expect to have the sugars ready for Virent before the New Year and are confident the integration with Virent and the leading biopolymer producer will create new opportunities in the bio-fuels and bio-products space."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 4, 2011
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