NanoDynamics licences biofuel technology based on nanotech process intensification

NanoDynamics, Inc., a diversified nanotechnology and manufacturing company, announced the signing of an exclusive license agreement with Global Technex Pty of Brisbane Australia. The agreement is part of a project that marries NanoDynamics’ new 'ND Fusion' process intensification technology with Global Technex’ strategic plan to bring new technologies into the Australian biofuels industry.

The ability to economically convert sugarcane process streams to ethanol creates a potentially sweet deal for Australia, which has an abundant sugarcane crop and a heavy reliance on imported oil. The ultimate goal of the project is to build a large-scale ethanol production facility in Queensland, Australia to provide ethanol to the Australian market.

NanoDynamics intervenes in biofuels 'process intensification'. Developed in the1970’s as a means to reduce production plant size and capital costs in the oil industry, the concept has more recently evolved into a pathway to ‘Green Chemistry’; the design of chemical processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances in an energy efficient manner. The company's 'ND Fusion' technology is based on a patent-pending rotating tube reactor that provides extremely high mixing, heat and mass transfer rates in thin, highly sheared films on the walls of the reactor to create chemical processes that are cleaner, smaller, safer, faster, cheaper, and more efficient.

It is kind of efficiency increases - the result of better process design (earlier post) and new fermentor technologies - that has allowed ethanol producers in Brazil to push back costs by 75% over the past 25 years (earlier post), a process that is expected to continue over the coming decades. Analists predict this trend could result in a doubling of the already impressive field-to-tank yield of sugarcane ethanol (earlier post).

There are many pathways to the production of ethanol but sugars are readily fermented through the use of yeasts, which consume the sugar and excrete ethanol as a by product. Still, the process is not without challenges:
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: fermentation :: nanotechnology :: Australia ::

Yeasts are living organisms that can be fickle and require just the right combination of conditions and time to produce the maximum amount of ethanol and once the yeast produces ethanol, it must be purified and separated from the yeast, water and nutrient wort in which it was produced. All this can be time consuming and capital intensive. The ND Fusion technology provides for faster, higher, more efficient ethanol yields by boosting fermentation without damaging fragile yeast cells and generates higher purity ethanol with significantly lower energy and capital expenditures than traditional processing methods.

In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard recently reaffirmed government commitment to the development of an Australian biofuels industry including excise concessions for alternative fuels as well as a total of AUD$41.2 million in production grants to fuel ethanol. Given Australia’s healthy sugarcane crop, 80%+ of which is exported, and a growing dependence on imported oil, Global Technex and NDFusion are well-poised to provide solutions.