Virent has earned the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. The biofuels technology company has earned the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) highest environmental award for its plant sugars-to-fuel process.

Virent’s BioForming technology converts plant sugars from nonfood and homegrown sources into gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel hydrocarbon molecules previously refined only from petroleum.

It is a water-based, catalytic method that requires little external energy. In the BioForming process, water-soluble carbohydrates are catalytically hydro-treated. The resultant sugar alcohols react with water over a proprietary heterogeneous metal catalyst to form hydrogen and chemical intermediates. The final step involves processing with one of multiple catalytic routes to turn these chemicals into either gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel components.

The entire process is carbon neutral, water-positive and has low life cycle emissions. It yields 30% more net energy than corn ethanol processes due to the natural separation of gasoline from water.

The fuels made from the BioForming process have the same molecular composition and performance as petroleum fuels. They can be used as replacements for or maybe used at high blends with petroleum fuels.
The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards provides national recognition for outstanding chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry across the product life cycle. It promotes pollution prevention through partnerships with the chemistry community.

Virent Energy Systems is the first company to be honored in the award’s 14-year history for the clean manufacturing of liquid transportation fuels from biomass. It won this year’s Small Business Award.

Other award recipients for this year include the Eastman Chemical Company for its solvent-free biocatalytic process for cosmetic and personal care ingredients; CEM Corporation for its analyzer tag proteins; the Proctor and Gamble Company and Cook Composites and Polymers Company for Chempol MPS Resins and Sefose Sucrose Esters; and Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski for Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization.


-  Katrice R. Jalbuena

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Source:

¹ http://www.virent.com/News/press/06-22-09_Virent_Earns_Presidential...
² http://www.virent.com
³ http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/pubs/pgcc/presgcc.html
⁴ http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/pubs/pgcc/winners/sba09.html
⁵ http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/pubs/pgcc/past.html