Joule Unlimited Technologies declared that it has been granted two U.S. patents for its basic processing techniques in the manufacture of ethanol in large volumes and for its competencies in exceeding the production limits than a biomass dependent procedure.
US Senator John Kerry tours the lab at Joule. Credit: Joule
It received U.S. Patent #7,968,321 and U.S. Patent #7,981,647 on June 28th and July 19th respectively covering its process of engineering enzymatic mechanisms into the cell to improve ethanol production.
The issued patents are related to processes for augmenting the ethanol manufacturing efficiency of a photosynthetic microorganism. The technology introduced by Joule is different from other ethanol production technologies. Instead of utilizing the microorganisms to ferment sugars from biomass materials and sugars in the process of ethanol production, Joule’s process engineers the microorganism to generate and secrete ethanol in a non-stop process thus changing over 90% of the carbon dioxide it in takes in to an end product without depending on the use of biomass feedstock.
The new inventions along with the company’s advancements in solar capture and conversion and in bio processing technologies will enable Joule to reach an annual production of 25,000 gallons. The rate of production is 10 times more than that of cellulosic ethanol and 100 times greater than the production of corn ethanol, which does not require the use of fresh water, food crops and agricultural land. Also the avoidance of biomass usage saves the company from the ever changing cost of feedstock and the lengthy biomass conversion process. Currently, the company manufactures ethanol at pilot scale and has attained around 50% of its productivity objective in its lab scale process.