At our corporate headquarters in Sioux Falls, we’ll
host a great lineup of ethanol researchers, experts and industry leaders for Day One
of the BIOFUELS JOURNAL 2nd Annual Commercial Ethanol Technology and
Research Workshop Wednesday and Thursday.
The focus of the workshop is to outline ways to make ethanol
production more efficient and profitable. Technology such as displacing natural
gas for energy savings, fractionation, and adding new co-products will all be
covered. Industry progress in commercializing cellulosic ethanol will also be highlighted.
Wednesday's session will take place at POET.The Thursday session will be at the Best Western
Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center in Sioux Falls.
Keynote speakers for the event are Jeff Broin, CEO of POET, and
Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol.For a full list of speakers and topics, see
the agenda.
If we want to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the world is going to have to find ways to make renewable alternatives to things that are currently made from fossil fuels. As our largest example, POET annually produces 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol that displaces gasoline from petroleum.
However, fuels are far from the only things in this country that come from petroleum. There is a long list of products that are made from oil. One of the primary areas of research and development from POET is finding renewable ingredients that can replace those that come from oil.
So on Blog Action Day, POET announces a new co-product, Inviz, a protein with little nutritional value that can replace the synthetic petroleum-based ingredients in films, packaging, adhesives, coatings and glazes, as you can read in the release.
Among the first to notice were bloggers Doris de Guzman at Green Chemicals and Cindy Zimmerman at Domestic Fuel. You can listen to interview with POET VP of Commercial Development Scott Weishaar here.
As I said in this morning's post about the scientist behind Inviz, we have many people at POET looking at many products beyond ethanol that can replace those made from fossil fuels. We're working on the biorefinery of the future (see image below). I thought that would be something worth talking about this Blog Action Day.
Today, POET announced a new co-product from the ethanol production process: Inviz. Inviz is a protein called zein, that is extracted from Dakota Gold HP at POET's ethanol production facility in Scotland, S.D. The protein is a renewable ingredient that can be used instead of petroleum-based ingredients in films, packaging, adhesives, coatings and glazes, as you can read in the release.
The announcement is another step from ethanol production facility to full biorefinery. But how did POET arrive at this place? The answer is largely found in the career path of POET Senior Scientist John Lawton.
Lawton has spent his career working on zein, much of it at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research at USDA ARS in Peoria, Ill. That extensive research has made him one of the world's foremost experts on zein. In fact, the Wikipedia entry for zein lists three papers authored or co-authored by Lawton. Those are just a few of the 32 peer-reviewed journal publications and five book chapters that Lawton has authored on zein and related topics and he is also responsible for four patents.
Recognizing that expertise, POET hired Lawton almost three years ago so that he could lead the company's efforts to develop commercial production of zein. The two had collaborated on zein research a few years prior to Lawton's arrival at POET.
For his part, Lawton wanted to come to POET because he recognized that the way POET produced ethanol resulted in a co-product that was a better starting point for zein. The Dakota Gold HP distillers grains produced with POET's proprietary fractionation and "no-cook" technologies of BFRAC and BPX, contains a protein that hasn't been damaged by heat. As noted in the release, Lawton is excited to see the commercialization of his life's work in the lab.
Take a look at this video from POET TV of Lawton explaining zein and the advantages of Inviz:
This is one of the many people at POET working on many renewable products that can displace those made from fossil fuels. To keep up with our progress, keep visiting this blog and follow us on Twitter.
