Company Name
CHOREN Industries

Company Web Site
http://www.choren.com/

Headquarters
Freiberg, Germany

Latest News
November 9, 2009

The Netherlands' energy major Shell has sold its stake in second generation biofuels producer Choren.

Choren is building Germany's first cellulosic ethanol plant using non-food raw materials as feedstock with a commercial operational target of 2010.

Shell sold its minority shareholding to other shareholders, which comprise German vehicles groups Volkswagen and Daimler plus a consortium of investors largely from the Hamburg region.

The plant is being built in Freiberg in south Germany to produce about 15,000 tonnes of biomass-to-liquid (BTL) fuels largely using wood products and wood-based waste as feedstock.

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(From Choren's web site)
CHOREN is one of the world's leading gasification technology companies for solid biomass and oil based residue feedstock.

The center-piece of the technology is the patented Carbo-V process that made the production of tar-free synthetic combustion gas possible and provided the breakthrough for the conversion of biomass to energy.

The process can now be used to generate heat, power or transport fuels.

CHOREN's designer fuel is so clean that our partners Volkswagen and Daimler named it SunDiesel. Compared to traditional diesel, the clean, synthetic SunDiesel can reduce harmful emissions and pollutants by 30-40% and moreover, it achieves superior combustion characteristics without the need for prerequisite engine modifications.

But perhaps its single most important attribute is the ability to recycle CO2 from the atmosphere into the fuel thereby closing the sustainability cycle. SunDiesel, technically known as BtL (Biomass to Liquid), releases only as much CO2 as was previously absorbed by the biomass that was used to produce the fuel. SunDiesel is therefore the first fuel with true zero emission potential.

Funding
Private individuals hold most of the stock in CHOREN. These include Dr. Wolf, the company founder, Mr. Blades, the CEO, and some leading businessmen in Northern Germany. In addition Shell Deutschland Oil GmbH has a minority stake.

SHELL is supplying the FT-technology for the first Commercial Sun-Diesel plant in the world, the Beta plant in Freiberg, Germany. SHELL has a product offtake agreement and will guarantee the product quality for consumers. SHELL is a minority stockholder in CHOREN.

Cooperation agreements have been signed with DaimlerChrysler and VW, for example, and these cover cooperation in particular R&D projects. However, there is no corporate integration.

The existing circle of stockholders will mainly fund the next stage of expansion at CHOREN. However, in the medium term, it will be possible for a wider circle of interested parties to commit funds to the "SunDiesel - made by CHOREN" project.

Technology
Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is used to convert the synthesis gas into an automotive fuel. During this process, the reactive parts of the synthesis gas (CO and H2) interact with a catalyst to form hydrocarbons. FT synthesis was developed in Germany in the 1920s and it is particularly used in South Africa on a large scale to produce automotive fuels from coal.

In order to maximize the output of diesel (SunDiesel), the waxes formed during the FT synthesis process are further processed using hydrocracking techniques, a standard process that is used in the petrochemical sector to recycle waste substances at refineries.

What are the advantages of SunDiesel?

1. SunDiesel has excellent properties:
* free of aromatic hydrocarbons, a high cetane number => improvements in ignition and combustion performance and therefore a reduction in exhaust gas emissions (particles, hydrocarbons);
* sulfur-free (better than the 10 ppm in what is known as sulfur-free diesel);
* the preferred automotive fuel for the next generation of engines, as it can be "designed";

2. SunDiesel has the greatest potential of all biofuels, as
* a very broad spectrum of feed materials can be used,
* whole plants are used,
* in the short term the yields per hectare are minimum three times higher than with biodiesel; yields as much as 10 times higher are possible in the long term as a result of further developments in plants and by includ-ing renewable hydrogen;

3. SunDiesel provides excellent potential for avoiding greenhouse gases (CO2 reduction):
* The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) presented by the independent assessor, PE Europe, proves that up to 90% of CO2 can be avoided at the relatively small SunDiesel Beta Plant at Freiberg when compared with fossil diesel fuel.
* The LCA also demonstrates that there is a similar reduction in photooxidation potential (summer smog).

4. Vehicle engines do not have to be modified if SunDiesel is used - nor do gasoline stations - and there is huge potential for the next generation of engines (e.g. combined combustion system [CCS] at VW). If SunDiesel is used in Euro-III engines, the engine automatically meets the tough Euro-IV exhaust emission limits without any modifications to the engine.