Exxon­Mobil and Renew­able Energy Group: Pro­gress in Cel­lu­losic Biod­ies­el Research

Exxon­Mobil and Renew­able Energy Group (REG) announced that by util­iz­ing REG’s pat­en­ted fer­ment­a­tion tech­no­logy, the com­pan­ies’ joint research pro­gram has demon­strated the abil­ity to con­vert sug­ars from a vari­ety of non-edible bio­mass sources into biod­ies­el. ​“Our first chal­lenge dur­ing the ini­tial research was to determ­ine tech­nic­al feas­ib­il­ity and poten­tial envir­on­ment­al bene­fits,” said Vijay Swarup, vice pres­id­ent of research and devel­op­ment at Exxon­Mobil Research and Engin­eer­ing Com­pany. ​“We’re optim­ist­ic as the res­ults indic­ate good poten­tial for advan­cing the tech­no­logy, and we look for­ward to con­tinu­ing our work with REG Life Sci­ences.” Dur­ing their ini­tial research, the com­pan­ies suc­cess­fully val­id­ated the feas­ib­il­ity of the REG Life Sci­ences fer­ment­a­tion tech­no­logy across mul­tiple cel­lu­losic sug­ar com­pos­i­tions pro­duced with a vari­ety of meth­ods from vari­ous non-edible bio­mass sources. The research also con­firmed REG Life Sci­ences tech­no­logy is cap­able of achiev­ing sub­stan­tial reduc­tions of full-life­cycle green­house gas emis­sions com­pared to tra­di­tion­al dies­el fuel. Exxon­Mobil signed an agree­ment with REG in Janu­ary 2016 to study the pro­duc­tion of biod­ies­el through fer­ment­a­tion of renew­able cel­lu­losic sug­ars from sources such as agri­cul­tur­al waste. The com­pan­ies have agreed to extend the research pro­gram based on their pos­it­ive find­ings and are excited to con­tin­ue to jointly explore the technology’s poten­tial for scalab­il­ity. ​“Bio­fuels today are made largely from food sources, such as corn and sug­ar cane,” said Swarup. ​“Exxon­Mobil is chal­len­ging that paradigm by explor­ing a port­fo­lio of large-scale bio­fuels solu­tions that do not com­pete with food and water. Our work with REG Life Sci­ences has been crit­ic­al to bet­ter under­stand­ing the poten­tial for con­vert­ing cel­lu­losic feed­stock from agri­cul­tur­al waste into a com­mer­cially viable dies­el fuel, as well as the life­cycle green­house gas implic­a­tions of that pro­cess.” REG Life Sci­ences has developed pro­pri­et­ary tech­no­logy that relies on microbes to con­vert cel­lu­losic sug­ars into biod­ies­el in a one-step fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess. Cel­lu­losic feed­stocks derived from agri­cul­tur­al waste, con­tain mul­tiple types of sug­ars, includ­ing gluc­ose and xyl­ose, as well as impur­it­ies that can inhib­it the fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess. ​“Exxon­Mobil has been a great part­ner and we are proud of what we have accom­plished to date,” said Eric Bowen, vice pres­id­ent of REG Life Sci­ences. ​“The Life Sci­ences team, led by Fernando Sanc­hez-Riera, seni­or dir­ect­or, Fer­ment­a­tion Pro­cess Devel­op­ment, made key dis­cov­er­ies in advan­cing the com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion of fer­ment­ing diverse cel­lu­losic sug­ars into renew­able, clean burn­ing dies­el fuel. We are excited to take these dis­cov­er­ies to the next level. We believe our REG Life Sci­ences tech­no­logy holds great poten­tial as an innov­a­tion plat­form across mul­tiple indus­tries and can think of no part­ner bet­ter than Exxon­Mobil to help us real­ize that poten­tial in fuels.” A break­through in cel­lu­losic biod­ies­el pro­duc­tion could have broad implic­a­tions for the trans­port­a­tion sec­tor. Glob­al demand for trans­port­a­tion-related energy is pro­jec­ted to increase by about 25 per­cent through 2040, and accel­er­at­ing the reduc­tion in emis­sions from the trans­port­a­tion sec­tor through tech­no­lo­gies like biod­ies­el will play a crit­ic­al role in redu­cing glob­al green­house gas emis­sions. Exxon­Mobil is also act­ively research­ing oth­er emis­sion-redu­cing tech­no­lo­gies, includ­ing algae bio­fuels and car­bon cap­ture and sequest­ra­tion. In June 2017, Exxon­Mobil and part­ner Syn­thet­ic Gen­om­ics, Inc. announced a break­through in joint research into advanced bio­fuels involving the modi­fic­a­tion of an algae strain that more than doubled its oil con­tent without sig­ni­fic­antly inhib­it­ing the strain’s growth. In 2016, Exxon­Mobil announced its part­ner­ship with Con­necti­c­ut-based Fuel­Cell Energy, Inc. to advance the use of car­bon­ate fuel cells to eco­nom­ic­ally cap­ture car­bon emis­sions from nat­ur­al gas power plants while gen­er­at­ing hydro­gen and addi­tion­al elec­tri­city. Since 2000, Exxon­Mobil has spent about $8 bil­lion to devel­op and deploy lower-emis­sion energy solu­tions across its oper­a­tions.

About Exxon­Mobil

Exxon­Mobil, the largest pub­licly traded inter­na­tion­al energy com­pany, uses tech­no­logy and innov­a­tion to help meet the world’s grow­ing energy needs. Exxon­Mobil holds an industry-lead­ing invent­ory of resources, is one of the largest refiners and mar­keters of pet­ro­leum products, and its chem­ic­al com­pany is one of the largest in the world. For more inform­a­tion, vis­it www​.exxon​mobil​.com.

About Renew­able Energy Group

Renew­able Energy Group, Inc. is a lead­ing pro­vider of clean­er, lower car­bon intens­ity products and ser­vices. We are an inter­na­tion­al pro­du­cer of bio­mass-based dies­el, a developer of renew­able chem­ic­als and North America’s largest pro­du­cer of advanced bio­fuel. REG util­izes an integ­rated pro­cure­ment, dis­tri­bu­tion, and logist­ics net­work to con­vert nat­ur­al fats, oils, greases and sug­ars into lower car­bon intens­ity products. With 14 act­ive biore­finer­ies, a feed­stock pro­cessing facil­ity, research and devel­op­ment cap­ab­il­it­ies and a diverse and grow­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­erty port­fo­lio, REG is com­mit­ted to being a long-term lead­er in bio-based fuel and chem­ic­als. REG Life Sci­ences is devel­op­ing renew­able products for part­ners by apply­ing its state of the art micro­bi­al fer­ment­a­tion plat­form to hard to solve prob­lems. REG Life Sci­ences part­ners with industry lead­ers across mul­tiple mar­kets to bring these low car­bon, cost com­pet­it­ive and per­form­ance advant­aged products to mar­ket. Source: Renew­able Energy Group, Inc.