Grainnet

Lakewood, CO—ZeaChem Inc., a developer of biorefineries for the conversion of renewable biomass into fuels and chemicals, Nov. 18 announced it has begun construction of its semi-works scale facility.

The company is working with Hazen Research, Inc. of Golden, CO to construct the critical first step of the biorefinery fermentation process.

"ZeaChem is meeting its deployment milestones and moving forward to advanced biofuels and bio-based chemicals production," said Jim Imbler, president and chief executive officer of ZeaChem.

"We have a dedicated energy feedstock supplier, we have raised necessary capital, we have completed the initial design package and are finalizing the detailed engineering and design package and are finalizing the detailed engineering and design package. Initiating construction of this front-end fermentation unit operation demonstrates that ZeaChem is accelerating deployment of its unique hybrid biorefining technology." The front-end fermentation unit scales up production of the naturally occurring bacteria, called an acetogen, which ZeaChem uses in its fermentation process.

Acetogens are highly robust and, unlike yeast, produce no carbon dioxide (CO2) during the fermentation process, allowing ZeaChem to realize a significant efficiency and yield advantage.

ZeaChem has successfully produced acetogens at the lab scale for over 1,000 fermentation trials of sugars as well as hydrolyzate derived from cellulosic biomass.

The facility will have the capaicty to produce 250,000 gallons of biofuel per year.

Hazen Research, an industrial research and development firm, will construct and host the initial process unit and provide infrastructure and operations support.

ZeaChem is constructing the semi-works scale biorefinery utilizing skid-mounted design, which allows construction of individual process units more quickly in fabrication shops.

The skids act like modular building blocks, each approximately the size of a cargo shipping container, and will be integrated together at the final biorefinery site, proposed in Boardman, OR.

Key advantages of skid-mounted design include the ability to optimize unit operations earlier in the process and the flexibility to bolt on and phase in additional skids as the biorefinery is deployed in stages.

These steps significantly reduce the risk of individual process operations and ultimate integration. ZeaChem intends to scale to a commercial biorefinery upon successful operations at the semi-works scale facility. The core technology of such a facility will come online in 2010.

Jim Imbler Biography

Imbler is the president and CEO of ZeaChem, a developer of biorefineries for the conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals with unprecedented efficiency.

Imbler is an accomplished senior executive with experience in directing multi-billion dollar energy, petroleum, refining, chemical, and trading operations.

In addition, he is an entrepreneur who has led new businesses in startups focused on commodities, business services, and software. He has been president and CEO of FuelSpot, a venture-backed Internet trading platform for fuels; Fuels Management, a coal upgrading business; and CEO Equity, a leveraged buyout firm. Jim was also SVP of Business Development for Evergreen Energy, a publicly-traded company with technology for upgrading coal.

Prior to these assignments, he was president of the Koch Petroleum Group, where he was responsible for the refining, pipeline, energy and petroleum, asphalt, and trading businesses.

He started his career with FMC, where he held a variety of engineering and management positions.

Jim holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MBA, both from the University of Kansas.

For more information, call 303-279-7045.

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