Biomass Conversion Technology

Biomass Conversion Technology

General Biomass Company develops hydrolytic enzymes to convert biomass to next-generation biofuels and bioplastics. Our enzymes make glucose and xylose from biomass. Glucose from cellulose and xylose from hemicellulose are the core feedstocks for nextgen biofuels, whether ethanol, butanol or designer biofuels. Inquiries about the company should be directed to dgibbs@generalbiomass.com.

Green plants are the only feasible way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at ambient concentrations (now 387ppm). Plants use solar energy to fix atmospheric carbon into sugars, which can then be made into ethanol, chemicals, and plastics, partially replacing the use of fossil oil and natural gas. Apart from this fossil fuel sparing effect, some biomass crops can sequester CO2, potentially giving carbon negative solutions (decreasing atmospheric CO2). In the United States, it is feasible to replace 30% of the gasoline supply with cellulosic ethanol. Newer technologies now allow the production of diesel and jet fuel from biomass sugars, such as glucose produced by cellulosic technology.

Sugar for biofuels and bioplastics

All industrial fermentations run on sugar. Their energy and chemical building blocks come from sugars, today from cane sugar (sucrose) in Brazil, or from corn sugar (glucose) in the United States. This presents a problem for the growth of biofuels in the U.S. and Canada, since little sugar cane is grown in North America, and corn can produce only about 13 billion gallons of ethanol at the maximum. We need to produce at least 60 billion gallons of renewable biofuels in the U.S., and therefore need large quantities of sugars from biomass. We also need to begin replacing petroleum-based plastics with renewable bioplastics made from lactic acid produced by fermentation of nonfood sugars derived from urban waste paper and sustainable forests.

The solution for continued biofuels and bioplastics growth is to make large quantities of glucose and xylose sugars from nonfood biomass, using glycosyl hydrolase enzymes and technology such as those developed by General Biomass.

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