Company Name
SunEthanol

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

Headquarters
Hadley, MA

Latest News
August 8, 2008
Amherst, Mass.-based SunEthanol Inc. was recently awarded a $750,000 grant from the U.S. DOE to continue perfecting its one-step process for converting plant waste to ethanol. This is the fourth DOE grant that SunEthanol has received in the past year.

SunEthanol plans to use the latest round of funding to begin the commercialization work for its Complete Cellulosic Conversion (C3) process. The process is centered on SunEthanol' s QMicrobe technology, which it claims can convert a wide array of plant and organic materials directly into ethanol. The technology is based on a microorganism that company co-founder and University of Massachusetts Amherst professor of microbiology Dr. Susan Leschine discovered in soil near a Massachusetts reservoir.

According to SunEthanol, its technology is unique in that it' s a one-step process that doesn' t require the use of enzymes and can be used on a wide variety of organic feedstocks.

"The Q Microbe has exhibited great versatility in converting a wide variety of non-food, biomass feedstocks to ethanol," Leschine said." We are pleased that research that began in the microbiology labs at University of Massachusetts Amherst may change the way we fuel our vehicles around the globe."

SunEthanol will continue to collaborate with researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and plans to begin constructing cellulosic ethanol production facilities in 2010.
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May 27, 2008
SunEthanol Inc. reports it has made huge progress on improving the productivity of its trademarked Q Microbe, a unique clostridium bacterium. "We've had up to a seven-fold increase since January, to the point where we're within reaching distance of economic viability," said Jef Sharp, chief executive officer of SunEthanol.

The company is focusing on the Q Microbe, the company' s patented Complete Cellulose Conversion process which would make cellulosic ethanol production cost effective by combining the hydrolysis and fermentation of pretreated cellulose into a single step.

The Amherst, Mass.-based company announced May 16 it has received a $100,000 U.S. Department of Energy grant. SunEthanol has received three DOE grants in the past year to continue its research. The nine-month, phase one Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is a collaborative effort between SunEthanol, Texas A and M University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. John Kilbane, senior scientist of SunEthanol, is the principal investigator, bringing his experience in strain and bioprocess development to the project. Mark Holtzapple with the Texas A and M University is a national authority in the production of pretreated biomass, particularly using oxidative lime. Jeffrey Blanchard with the University of Massachusetts Amherst is an expert in the use of DNA microarrays for transcriptional analyses.

SunEthanol has also entered into a collaborative effort with Harvard University to further define genome tools for optimizing the microorganism. "We may get to economic viability without genetic engineering," Sharp said. "But we' re laying the groundwork to develop these tools if necessary." He added that they are focusing on the more benign genetic engineering technologies, rather than the recombinant methods.

"We're on a roll at this moment for being a leading contender to be first," Sharp said of SunEthanol' s efforts to create a commercially viable cellulosic ethanol process. The company is presently negotiating with three different strategic partners, and expects to be soon working on pilot scale projects with those partners as well as in its own facilities.

Parekh said the microbe displays another encouraging characteristic. "It bio-converts all feedstock carbohydrates to ethanol in a single step. Our consolidated bio-processing platform will result in higher yields of carbohydrates from each ton of biomass, and thereby enable us eventually to produce ethanol at a cost below gasoline."

SunEthanol is working on three federally-funded research and development projects. Recent breakthroughs in the lab are enabling SunEthanol to demonstrate the economic and technical feasibility of its approach and complete scale-up. The company is working under a DOE contract with industry leaders VeraSun Energy Corp. and ICM Inc. to build a pilot-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in St. Joseph, Mo., in 2009.

Funding
SunEthanol has a number of financial partners. These include: VeraSun Energy located in South Dakota, Battery Ventures in Silicon Valley, CA, Long River Ventures of Amherst, MA, AST Capital and a small number of private investors. The University of Massachusetts also has an equity stake in SunEthanol. It is from UMass that Dr. Leschine's innovative "Q microbe" technology is licensed.

Technology
SunEthanol's bio-processing technology is based upon a remarkable proprietary microbial "catalyst" that is uniquely capable of efficiently converting a wide range of cellulosic biomass directly to ethanol. By simplifying and consolidating the costliest aspects of current biomass-to-ethanol technology, SunEthanol can reduce both process and plant capital costs, making large-scale ethanol production from cellulosic biomass cost-effective.

A more economical process

Converting cellulose to ethanol is currently a complex, multi-step process. Cellulosic biomass -plant matter -is an abundant, low-cost source of stored energy. However, unlocking that embodied energy has presented a challenge. Cellulosic biomass is composed of highly ordered sugar polymers, which are shielded from enzyme attack by a matrix of other complex polymers. This makes biomass very difficult to break down into its constituent sugars, in order to ferment these sugars into ethanol.

Typically, cellulosic biomass must go through an intensive pretreatment step, after which enzymes are used to break down the biomass into simple sugars suitable for fermentation by yeast into ethanol. Enzymes, along with the intensive pretreatment required for their use, are the largest single cost component of cellulosic ethanol production. SunEthanol's technology eliminates the need for a separate enzymatic conversion step, and broadens pretreatment options.
Other potential advantages:

SunEthanol's proprietary catalyst offers other potential advantages. It can process an unusually diverse range of biomass feedstocks. It is also able to ferment all fermentable components of biomass (both C5 and C6 sugars, as well as other saccharides and polysaccharides), and ethanol is its primary product.
Strong industry partnerships

SunEthanol is currently partnering with leading industry and R&D partners to develop and implement this technology platform.

SunEthanol is commercializing a new, renewable energy solution for the transportation sector. Its technology converts almost any form of cellulose (e.g. corn stover, switchgrass, sugar cane bagasse, wood chips, recycled paper) to ethanol, a fuel for your car, using a naturally occurring microbe, "the Q microbe technology".

The Q microbe was discovered by Dr. Susan Leschine and Tom Warnick from UMass Amherst in soil found near the Quabbin Reservoir in Western MA. It is a naturally occurring anaerobic microbe and is not dangerous.

SunEthanol has developed a unique industrial process that makes ethanol fuel from plants without the use of enzymes. This process is less costly and allows for the use of many types of plant feedstocks. SunEthanol has pioneered a one step "Consolidated Bioprocessing" (CBP) industrial process.