First pro­duc­tion in his­tory of fully renew­able ETBE

Cur­rent stand­ards lim­it the inclu­sion of tra­di­tion­al bio­fuels because of their phys­ic­al and chem­ic­al prop­er­ties. For example, the French stand­ard caps eth­an­ol con­tent at 5% in 95-octane and 98-octane unleaded gas­ol­ine, and at 10% in unleaded 95-E10 gas­ol­ine. The major­ity of coun­tries in the world impose this type of lim­it – com­monly known as the ​“blend wall”, but if bio­fuels are to become more widely used in the future, this lim­it will have to be addressed. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies offers a new meth­od for get­ting bey­ond the blend wall: fully renew­able ETBE. His­tor­ic­ally, par­tially renew­able ETBE (ethyl-tert-butyl eth­er) is obtained by com­bin­ing a molecule of renew­able eth­an­ol with a molecule of fossil isob­utene using a simple and proven pro­cess. It is used as an addit­ive in vehicle fuel, up to a max­im­um of 23%. The glob­al mar­ket for the product is cur­rently val­ued at more than €2 bil­lion, or more than 3 mil­lion tonnes annu­ally. The innov­a­tion con­sists of using this same pro­cess to com­bine renew­able eth­an­ol with renew­able isob­utene obtained using Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ tech­no­logy. This purely renew­able ETBE holds the poten­tial for incor­por­at­ing 2.7 times more renew­able energy in gas­ol­ine than with tra­di­tion­al bio­fuels. It will also help to cut green­house gas emis­sions even fur­ther. Bern­ard Chaud, Head of Indus­tri­al Strategy at Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, says: ​“Fuels like 95-octane and 98-octane unleaded gas­ol­ine are blends of sev­er­al types of fuels with dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties. Intro­du­cing new bio­fuels with very sim­il­ar prop­er­ties to gas­ol­ine com­pon­ents will increase the por­tion of renew­able energy, while also com­ply­ing with cur­rent stand­ards. It is vital to pre­pare for the deple­tion of fossil resources and to act now to reduce the amount of green­house gases released into the atmo­sphere.” Daniela Pufky-Hein­rich, Pro­ject Man­ager at the Fraunhofer Cen­ter for Chem­ic­al-Bio­tech­no­lo­gic­al Pro­cesses, con­cludes: ​“We have used com­mer­cial fer­ment­at­ive eth­an­ol and renew­able isob­utene pro­duced by Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, which is a per­fect match for the spe­cific­a­tions required for this reac­tion. We are proud to have been selec­ted to pro­duce this first batch of 100% renew­able ETBE, which could be a game changer in fuel addit­ives.” This first pro­duc­tion of entirely renew­able ETBE was sup­por­ted by a grant of the Ger­man Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (BMBF). Phil­ippe Marlière, co-founder and part­ner of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, adds: ​“The con­ver­sion into purely renew­able ETBE adds to our pre­vi­ous suc­cesses con­vert­ing renew­able isob­utene to chem­ic­al products, mater­i­als and iso-octane fuel. The increas­ing num­ber of applic­a­tions under­scores the value of our strategy to give pri­or­ity to isob­utene as a tar­get from the com­pany’s earli­est begin­nings and strengthens it in its innov­at­ive approach to reform­ing the glob­al energy mod­el.” Source: Glob­al Bioen­er­gies SA