Assessment of Conversion Technologies for Bioalcohol Fuel ...

several years ago, HFTA has been without a physical venue to carry on its
development of the process. HFTA claims that the development and testing conducted
to date demonstrate that the technology is ready for pilot plant verification.
Future Development Plans–HFTA continues as a business entity, headquartered in
Livermore, California. The University of California, Berkeley, Office of Intellectual
Property and Industrial Research Alliances includes the HFTA/UCFPL technology
among its listed available technologies, identifying it as an “eficient and cost-effective
biomass technology for clean energy”. The next stage of anticipated development of
the technology has been described as scale-up that will require a stable feedstock
supply and access to financing for a pilot plant with a capacity of 20 to 100 tons per
day. Commercial equipment is said to be available for all major components of a fullscale
plant, allowing almost parallel development of pilot and commercial facilities. At
this point, neither funding nor plans for continuation of development work involving the
HFTA/UCFPL technology have been announced.
Losonoco, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Organizational Background–Losonoco was formed in the UK in 2003 and
moved its headquarters to Florida in 2006. The name derives from “low sulfur
dioxide, no carbon dioxide”. The company’s business plan is to design, build, own
and/or operate biorefineries producing ethanol and electricity primarily from
cellulosic biomass.
Technology Characteristics–Losonoco’s proprietary biomass-to-ethanol
technology, illustrated in Figure A11, is a two-stage dilute acid hydrolysis process; it
consists of five steps described by the company as follow:
1. Feedstock preparation: Chopping, shredding and steam treating the feedstock
to soften it and start the process of breaking down the lignin
2. Acid hydrolysis: Using dilute acids, temperature and pressure to break open the
lignin and release the natural sugars
3. Sugar separation: Removing the acid/sugar solution from the hydrolysate;
separating the sugar from the acid and neutralizing it
4. Ethanol manufacture: Fermenting the sugars into a ‘beer’; removal of the ‘wet’
ethanol from the beer by distillation and removing the water from the ethanol
5. Carbon dioxide manufacturing: Capture, purification and liquefaction of the
carbon dioxide
A key feature of Losonoco’s technology is said to be its precise operating conditions
(temperature, pressure, acidity and residency) for each feedstock or mix of
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