TetraVitae Bioscience Achieves First Demonstration of Renewable n-Butanol From a Corn Dry-Mill

CHICAGO, Dec. 17, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- TetraVitae Bioscience announced today that it has completed a successful demonstration of its process to produce renewable n-butanol in a corn dry-mill pilot plant. The demonstration is a major milestone in creating economically competitive renewable n-butanol for the coatings, plastics, personal care, and packaging industries.

"With this achievement, TetraVitae has shown that producing renewable n-butanol in a commercial scale corn dry-mill will be a reality very soon," said Jay Kouba, CEO of TetraVitae. "Corn dry-mills offer the most direct, capital efficient, and low-cost route to large-scale production of renewable chemicals in North America. The industry has built a successful business based on fuel ethanol. TetraVitae is offering dry-mill operators a way to make higher value products using their existing capital base."

In the demonstration, TetraVitae worked with The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) to retrofit NCERC's fully integrated corn dry-mill pilot plant to enable it to run TetraVitae's technology.

The technology performed as expected, producing n-butanol, acetone, and distillers grains, and validating that the production process is economically competitive. The demonstration shows that a corn dry-mill can be retrofitted to efficiently produce n-butanol.

In addition, TetraVitae has demonstrated product purification. Working with the University of Texas in Austin's Separations Research Program, the company took the raw chemical products produced at NCERC and produced purified n-butanol and acetone in a continuous distillation. The products meet standard chemical industry specifications for solvents.

"n-Butanol and acetone are high value chemicals with many applications in the coatings, plastics, personal care, and packaging industries," said Kouba. "TetraVitae is creating partnerships with companies across these value chains that will result in economically competitive renewable products that consumers use every day."

About TetraVitae Bioscience

TetraVitae Bioscience is commercializing the production of renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels. The company has developed a leading fermentation process that can be deployed in conventional corn and sugarcane ethanol plants, and is compatible with cellulosic feedstocks. Our products, n-butanol, acetone, and derivatives, are important intermediates in the coatings, plastics, personal care, and packaging industries. In addition, n-butanol and derivatives are promising candidates as diesel blendstocks. TetraVitae is a privately held company headquartered in Chicago, IL. More information about TetraVitae can be found at www.tetravitae.com.

About NCERC

Located on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, NCERC has contributed greatly to the optimization of corn to ethanol production and fully engaged in advanced biofuel production since its inception in 2003. NCERC has excelled in collaboration with academic scientists and industrial partners by providing flexible processing design at its pilot plant in tandem with sophisticated fermentation laboratory and state-of-the-art analytical testing services. Further information about NCERC can be found at www.ethanolresearch.com

Stacey McClenathan, Bee-line Communications, 224-207-4330, [email protected]

SOURCE TetraVitae Bioscience