Dupont and BP announce Bio-Fuel Project

Dupont, BP Join to Produce Biofuels

DOVER, Del. - Chemical maker DuPont said Tuesday it will begin marketing biofuels for the transportation sector next year through a partnership with oil company BP PLC.

The companies said a collaboration they began in 2003 has advanced to the point where they plan to introduce butanol made from sugar beets as a gasoline blending component in the United Kingdom.

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Like ethanol, butanol is an alcohol compound, but with four carbon atoms instead of two. DuPont officials said the different chemical structure of butanol gives it several advantages over ethanol, including tolerance to water contamination, facilitating transportation via pipeline.

The U.S. fuel market has been constrained by the fact that ethanol, which attracts water molecules and therefore tends to corrode pipelines, must be transported on trucks, trains and bargest in relatively small batches to storage terminals where it is then blended with gasoline.

Another advantage of biobutanol, officials said, is that it can be blended into gasoline at higher concentrations than ethanol without the need to retrofit vehicles, and it offers better fuel economy than gasoline-ethanol blends.

"We concluded that butanol's performance plus ethanol's economics would be a great combination," said DuPont chief innovation officer Thomas Connelly.

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The second phase of the venture involves developing a genetically-modified microbe, or "ultimate bug," as the catalyst for new technology to significantly improve the conversion ratio in processing feedstocks into biobutanol, boosting fuel yield and concentration.

DuPont officials would not disclose their conversion ratio goal for the fermentation process, which results not just in butanol, but acetone and ethanol as well.

DuPont said it hopes to have the "generation 2" biocatalyst ready by 2010, but that there currently are no plans for a production facility in the U.S.

"We believe the opportune time to introduce this into the U.S. would be when the Gen 2 organism is available," Connelly said.

DuPont officials said their goal is to make the new technology fully competitive with unsubsidized petroleum production at oil prices between $30 and $40 per barrel.

In addition to sugar beets, other possible feedstocks for biobutanol production include sugar cane, corn, wheat and cassava. As the science progresses, cellulosic feedstocks from grasses or agricultural byproducts such as straw and corn stalks might also be used.

Officials said biobutanol will provide significant environmental benefits over petroleum fuels by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Fuels made from plants are considered environmentally friendly because the plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, offsetting the carbon dioxide released when the fuel is used.

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