Gevo licenses isobutanol technology in Florida

Gevo announced today that Highlands EnviroFuels has signed a letter of intent to become a Gevo licensee to produce renewable isobutanol.

"We are very pleased to be working with Highlands and having them join Gevo as a licensee," said Patrick Gruber, Gevo's CEO. "This new partnership shows the flexibility of Gevo's GIFT(R) technology to convert a wide range of sugar sources into isobutanol. It also continues to validate the interest in licensing our intellectual property portfolio as we look to transition our business to focus more on a licensing model."

Highlands will build a commercial-scale "Brazilian-style" syrup mill in Highlands County, Florida, which would have a production capacity of approximately 200,000 tpy of fermentable sugar. The facility will process locally grown sugar cane and sweet sorghum to a high quality syrup as a clean sugar stream for fermentation and recovery of isobutanol. 

The isobutanol plant would be bolted on to the back-end of the syrup mill and have a nameplate capacity of approximately 20-25 million gal/year.

"We look forward to partnering with Gevo because their renewable isobutanol enables multiple end-market opportunities for us, both as a 'drop-in' molecule for the specialty fuels and chemicals markets, and as hydrocarbon products utilizing Gevo's downstream alcohols-to-hydrocarbons technologies," said Bradley Krohn, president of Highlands. 

"In particular, isobutanol has a significant market opportunity in Florida with the boating industry given isobutanol's favorable properties as compared to ethanol," he added. "We are eager to finalize the details of a binding agreement so that we can start constructing the facility."