Consortium considers ethanol derived from paper pulp

Palo Alto, CA— Genencor International, a subsidiary of Danisco A/S, announced its participation in a research consortium to develop economic ethanol production from paper pulp through the use of know-how and infrastructure of the French forest products industry.

The project is sponsored by the French National Research Program for Bioenergy. The French National Research Agency will provide 50% of the funding to the partners. Besides Genencor, other partners include Tembec R&D Kraft, INSA Toulouse’s Laboratory for Biotechnology & Bioprocessing and the University of Bordeaux’s Pine Institute.

After a period of three years, the objective is baseline study of the technical and economic results of a small plant installed at a pulp mill with a focus on waste minimization of the milling process.

Genencor will provide its biomass cellulases and application expertise to optimize the enzymatic hydrolysis of various paper pulp samples provided by Tembec and the Pine Institute. In addition to providing samples, Tembec will also analyze the economics to evaluate the system for commercial deployment by the pulp industry. INSA’s Laboratory for Biotechnology and Bioprocessing will provide fermentation expertise through its Microbiology Engineering Team. The Pine Institute will share its expertise in pulping and in lignocellulose analysis and characterization.