SPORL Technology

SPORL technology is a novel sulfite pretreatment process for robust conversion of woody biomass to fermentable sugars through enzymatic hydrolysis for bioethanol production (patent pending).  The process consists of reacting the woody or non-woody substrates with a sulfite based chemical at elevated temperatures followed by size reduction to generate a fibrous substrate for subsequent saccharification and fermentation.  The process can achieve over 90% cellulose conversion to glucose of the selected pretreated substrate and over 80% of the wood hemicellulose can be recovered as monomeric sugars in the pretreatment hydrolysate.  Total fermentable sugar (glucose and mannose) recovery is over 84% with an ethanol yield of 73 gallons/ton of dry substrate.  The low energy consumption in the pretreatment and in the size-reduction results in net ethanol energy production of 4.55GJ/ton substrate (before distillation), or net ethanol production energy efficiency of 237%.  Such a high ethanol yield and net ethanol energy output from softwoods have not been reported using any other competing technologies.  The dissolved lignin in the SPORL pretreatment hydrolysate is sulfonated and has a great potencial as a co-product for direct marketing.