Blue Biofuels announced the achievement of full conversion of cellulose into soluble sugars from our king grass feedstock with our newly designed larger pilot reactor. We were able to process our king grass at a rate that is 100 times greater than that of the prototype system. This represents a significant milestone for Blue Biofuels’ proprietary Cellulose-to-Sugar (CTS) technology as our new reactor design can be directly scaled to commercial sizes.
With full conversion achieved, we will now focus on optimizing the continuous process and scale-up of the upstream and downstream steps and run for longer runs. We will also be looking into expanding available feedstock to serve the larger scale system we anticipate in the near future.
“This CTS pilot reactor is equipped with some design features that are necessary to ensure solid and feasible upscaling to very large volume, and therefore we are pleased to see full conversion with this system,” said CEO Ben Slager. “We firmly expect to have the same success with commercial-size machines.”
The knowledge gained from the completion of the pilot build-out will be key to the final design of the semi-commercial plant which is expected to be able to run up to a throughput rate to produce sufficient sugars that can convert into 500,000 gallons of ethanol per year.
