DuPont-Danisco to join U of Tenn biofuels project

Milhorn said Wednesday that Tennessee and DuPont-Danisco are "just much better aligned--technology wise, capability wise and philosophically from a business standpoint. They will bring resources and capabilities to bear here that will allow us to accelerate the development of our ethanol program."

DuPont and Danisco's Genencor, one of the world's foremost enzyme companies, partnered on the key technologies involved in a DuPont-Tate & Lyle plant that opened in nearby Loudon, Tenn., last year. That plant makes "Bio-PDO (propanediol)," a corn-based polymer that can replace petroleum in fabrics, face creams, carpets and a variety of other products. At the opening, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said that project was "on the leading edge of a biotechnology revolution."

Now comes Tennessee's project.

Tennessee, hoping to turn biofuels into a statewide industry, is funding UT research into the best ways to grow, harvest and transport switchgrass. DuPont specializes in pretreating the biomass material to break it down, Danisco-Genencor has the enzyme science to transform the cellulose into sugar and DuPont knows how to convert the sugar into ethanol through fermentation.

"At the end of the day we are talking about turning (a) ... kind of low-end feedstock into a fuel you can burn," said DuPont-Danisco Technology leader John Pierce.

DuPont and Danisco-Genencor created their ethanol joint venture in May, with a $140 million three-year commitment "to develop and commercialize the leading low-cost technology solution" for the so-called next generation of biofuel produced from nonfood sources.

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