Poet, Agrivida team up to cut cellulosic ethanol costs

Aug 21, 2012 - US ethanol producer Poet LLC and feedstocks developer Agrivida Inc have agreed a four-year technology partnership to develop Agrivida's technology platforms in a bid to cut the capital and operating costs of cellulosic ethanol plants.

Under the agreement, unveiled by the partners on Tuesday, Agrivida's engineered corn stover feedstock and feedstock processing technology will be developed and tested for integration with Poet's commercial cellulosic technology. Agrivida is working on traits designed to improve corn stover pretreatment and facilitate the process of breaking down cellulose while lowering enzymatic application costs.

Poet has been operating a pilot cellulosic ethanol plant at its research center in South Dakota since 2008. Recently, the company created a joint venture with Dutch chemicals group Royal DSM (AMS:DSM) to launch its first commercial cellulosic ethanol facility, which is scheduled to go online towards the end of 2013.

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