MHI Establishes Technology to Produce Biofuel Locally at Low Cost from Rice and Barley Straws

Tokyo, Apr 21, 2011 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has successfully established technology to produce ethanol for automobile fuel, satisfying the standards of the Japanese Automotive Standards Organization (JASO), from lignocellulose (soft cellulose) such as rice straw and barley straw. Verification of the technology has been conducted as a joint project involving the government, academia, and the agricultural and industrial sectors in Hyogo Prefecture, supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), to study effective utilization of lignocellulose. During the technological verification at a demonstration plant, the estimated fuel cost required for commercial-scale ethanol production was also confirmed to achieve the targeted goal. Going forward MHI will endeavor to develop the results of the project into early commercialization of bio-refinery technology in cooperation with companies and organizations concerned.

The demonstration project to produce cellulosic bioethanol has been under way since 2008 jointly with the Hyogo Prefectural Government, the Hyogo Environmental Advancement Association (HEAA) and other entities. MHI jointly with Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Co., Ltd. and Kansai Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. was responsible for verification of the bioethanol production processes. Initially, each of the three participating companies took charge of specific areas based on their expertise and conducted verification testing at their own research facility. Next, starting in December 2009 the entire process to produce ethanol from lignocellulose was verified at a demonstration plant built specifically for the project at MHI's Futami Plant in Hyogo. Rice and barley straws, the feedstocks, were provided by a local farmers association. HEAA, the Hyogo Prefectural Technology Center for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Mitsubishi Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. were responsible for the verification of effective technologies relating to feedstock collection, transportation and storage.

Among the various production processes, MHI was responsible for preprocessing and saccharification, Hakutsuru Sake Brewing for fermentation, and Kansai Chemical Engineering for distillation and dehydration.

For preprocessing and saccharification, MHI adopted a hydrothermal treatment system that enables continuous processing of feedstocks; MHI made improvements to the technologies, which were jointly developed with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The new system can produce the sugar component, which is the raw material of ethanol, more efficiently than by conventional methods, using only hot compressed water and enzyme. The demonstration testing focused on the system's performance stability and continuous operatability and on optimization of the amount of enzyme to be applied.