(EnergyAsia, November 12, Wednesday) --- Australia’s Mission NewEnergy Limited said its first pilot plant using patent-pending technologies has successfully produced ethanol from agricultural waste material. The pilot plant was set up in a joint venture with a scientific team in India.

The breakthrough development means that Mission will be able to produce bio-ethanol from a range of low cost and abundantly available feedstock, eliminating the need to utilise valuable food crops as feedstock.

With over 360,000 acres of planted jatropha, Mission will have access to significant amounts of waste material as well as other agricultural waste produced by farms in the vicinity. The new technology therefore also allows the company to derive further value from its existing jatropha acreage. The technology can also be rolled out globally as it is able to process various different waste streams.

Mission NewEnergy managing director Nathan Mahalingam said: “The move into sustainable bioethanol is consistent with Mission’s vision to become an integrated world-class provider of sustainable renewable energy.

“It is widely accepted that the future of bio-ethanol is in the use of non-food crops, by utilising biomass wood, straws, fuel energy crops, paper pulp and other abundantly available agricultural waste products or biomass.

“While other technologies have been able to produce bio-ethanol from biomass, they have suffered from a low conversion rate of raw material to bio-ethanol or high conversion cost. Specifically, the high conversion cost is associated with the need to grow special low lignin and low silica grasses, the need to use expensive proprietary enzymes or high capital and operating costs associated with harsh operating conditions of acid concentration/temperature etc. These high production costs make other projects commercially not viable.

“None of these challenges exist within Mission’s technology and we believe, this positions Mission to become one of the few successful next-generation ethanol producers.

“This technological breakthrough is a significant development for Mission and has the potential to take the company to a new level in the renewable energy industry.”

Mission said it will continue to further optimise the technologies and yield at the pilot plant and will simultaneously work towards commercialising the technologies.

Listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, Mission NewEnergy Limited operates in Malaysia and India. It owns and operates a 100,000 tonnes per year (approx. 30 million gallons per year) biodiesel plant at Kuantan in Malaysia.

The company is developing its upstream feedstock business in India, focusing on a drought-resistant perennial plant (Jatropha Curcas) that grows in marginal soil. Jatropha is easy to establish, grows quickly, produces seeds for over 40 years and is inedible.