BP And DuPont To Make 'Biobutanol'

BP, Europe's biggest oil company, is joining forces with chemical giant DuPont to develop, produce, and market a new generation of biofuels for the renewable transportation fuels sector.

The companies plan to bring their first product, n-butanol—which they call biobutanol—to market in the U.K. in 2007 as a gasoline component. BP and DuPont are working with British Sugar, a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, to convert the U.K.'s first ethanol fermentation facility, which uses sugar beets, to produce 30,000 tons, or 9 million gal, of butanol annually.

"We are announcing a partnership with BP, where we will use our science and technology and their marketing expertise to quickly get biobutanol to market," says DuPont CEO Charles O. Holliday Jr. "DuPont firmly believes that biology will help us reduce our global reliance on fossil fuels."

Holliday says DuPont believes that fermentation-derived butanol can be competitive without subsidies when oil prices are in the range of $30 to $40 per barrel.

For its part, BP has been seeking ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "Transportation is an important area to address since it accounts for around 20% of global emissions," says BP CEO John Browne. "In the short to medium term, increased blending of biocomponents represents one of the few real options for progress in this area on a global scale."

DuPont says the chemical structure of n-butanol gives it several advantages over ethanol, including low vapor pressure and tolerance to water contamination in gasoline blends, facilitating its use in existing distribution pipelines. Ethanol attracts water molecules and tends to corrode pipelines. Consequently, it must be transported by truck, rail, or barge in relatively small amounts to storage terminals, where it is blended with gasoline.

Another advantage of butanol, according to company officials, is that it can be blended into gasoline at higher concentrations than ethanol without having to retrofit vehicles. It also offers better fuel economy than gasoline-ethanol blends.

Dean Oestreich, president of DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International, says butanol is produced using a fermentation process very similar to that of ethanol. "Butanol is simply another molecule that is different than ethanol, but it's also a fuel. And what we've done here is found a way, through use of our science, to make the process more efficient and economically viable."

Like ethanol, a number of agricultural commodities can be used to produce butanol. "We can make biobutanol from corn grain, wheat, sugar beets, sugarcane, or sorghum, and in the future we look toward to being able to use cellulose-based crops as well, such as corn stalks or switchgrass," Oestreich says.

For the next phase of the venture, DuPont scientists are developing a genetically engineered microbe as the catalyst for new technology that will significantly boost the conversion rate in processing feedstock into fuel, increasing both the yield and concentration of butanol that can be achieved in the fermentation unit.

DuPont hopes to have the "Gen 2" biocatalyst ready by 2010, says Thomas M. Connelly Jr., senior vice president and chief science and technology officer. "We believe the opportune time to introduce this technology into the U.S. will be when our Gen 2 organism is available," he adds. BP and DuPont did not disclose financial details of their 50-50 partnership.