Gevo,
a company specializing in sophisticated biofuels and renewable
chemicals, proclaimed that it has started the retrofit works of its
Luverne, Minnesota-based ethanol plant to manufacture bio-based
isobutanol.
Gevo
expects to complete the retrofit by next summer. The upgrading will
make the Luverne facility as the first industrial-scale bio-based
isobutanol facility in the world. The company bought the Luverne
facility in September 2010 from Agri-Energy. The facility has an annual
production capacity of 18 million gallons of isobutanol.
Bio-based
isobutanol is an ideal substitute for petroleum and several other
products. It can be used as a fuel blend stock or as a solvent chemical.
It can also be modified into butenes, which are four carbon building
blocks. Butenes can be utilized to produce 100% of all hydrocarbon fuels
and 40% of all petrochemicals.
The
Chief Executive Officer at Gevo, Patrick Gruber stated that isobutanol
produced from green raw materials can be employed to produce fuel,
plastics and rubber and is an ideal solution to shift the nation’s
dependency on petroleum and form a bio-based economy. The company is
offering a high-value product that complements the country’s agriculture
industry, he added.