Gevo, Inc. has been awarded part of The Queensland Waste to Biofutures (W2B) Fund to support the development of waste to biofutures projects in Queensland, Australia.

The W2B fund provides targeted funding for pilot, demonstration or commercially scalable biorefinery projects in Queensland that use conventional waste streams or biomass to produce bioenergy, biofuels and high-value bioproducts.

We are thrilled to be awarded funding from W2B, which will allow us to further our assessment of a contemplated second generation (2G) feedstock to biofuel project in Queensland. Queensland is rich in renewable biomass resources and has expressed the desire to invest in the future of biofuels. This opportunity opens the door for the development of a project that not only supplies low carbon gasoline to Queensland, but also the possibility to supply commercial quantities of 2G sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to the Brisbane Airport, expanding upon our demonstrations of SAF supply to commercial airlines like those conducted with Virgin Australia over the last several months.

—Patrick Gruber, CEO of Gevo

Gevo supplied the renewable fuel used in Virgin Australia’s trial of sustainable aviation fuel at Brisbane Airport which was completed in June last year.

For this project, Gevo is evaluating the most likely 2G biomass to carbohydrate conversion process to use in conjunction with its proven carbohydrate to low carbon biofuel process.

Presently, at Gevo’s facility in Luverne, Minnesota, Gevo fractionates grain from sustainably produced crops to produce protein and animal feed while using the residual carbohydrate portion of the grain for fermentation to produce the intermediate chemical isobutanol.

The isobutanol is then chemically transformed using a hydrocarbon processing facility into renewable gasoline, diesel and SAF meeting ASTM D7566 (Standard Specification for Aviation Turbine Fuel Containing Synthesized Hydrocarbons). The SAF made by this process has very low sulfur, low particulates, and slightly higher energy density than petroleum-based jet fuel.

For every gallon of renewable hydrocarbons produced, like SAF, Gevo also produces approximately 10 pounds of protein that goes into the food supply chain and can sequester up to 2 pounds of carbon dioxide as carbon into the soil making it one of the only renewable jet fuels to produce both food and fuel while sequestering carbon dioxide and lowering the GHG emissions as compared to traditional fossil-based jet fuel.