PARIS-based industrial biology company Global Bioenergies that is developing sustainable routes to isobutene and butadiene, reported a half-year revenue of EUR100,000, for the year ended December 2011, and said that revenue was not important at this stage, until it starts its commercialising its products.
CEO Marc Delcourt said that the company had ramped up its capacities during the second half of 2011. It will start operating a laboratory pilot from mid-2012 and an industrial pilot from mid-2013. It entered into a number of partnerships last year including an agreement with New Zealand-based LanzaTech to evaluate the feasibility of producing isobutene from carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide can be obtained by gasification of agricultural waste (straw), forestry waste (wood pellets) or municipal solid waste. It can also be obtained from exhaust gas of steel mills. This collaboration reflects Global Bioenergies’s involvement in accessing feedstock that does not compete with food generation.
It also signed a butadiene partnership with synthetic rubber maker Synthos to develop a process to convert biological sources into butadiene, which represents a US$30 billion market. It includes R&D funding, possible multimillion Euro development fees, royalty payments, shared exploitation rights on the different applications of the molecule and a EUR1.4 million equity investment in Global Bioenergies from Synthos, which was finalised in September last year.
Its recent agreement was with a major German car manufacturer seeking to integrate sustainable development in its activities.(PRA)
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