|
OTTN Project Receives Significant Funding
Renewable energy
sources like biodiesel fuels are being hailed by governments, industry and environmentalists
as a great panacea – simultaneously reducing our reliance on costly and rapidly
depleting stocks of fossil fuels, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and
recycling waste.
A 2006 report from the
Canola Council of Canada stated; “The overall benefits of biodiesel compared to
fossil diesel from an environmental perspective are
overwhelming. Any significant
blend of biodiesel will not only mitigate greenhouse gasses but improve air
quality.”
But the biodiesel
industry, barely 10 years old, is still immature and current
methods for
turning feedstocks into usable fuel face their own hurdles. To start
with, the
process commonly used today is inefficient and producing quality product is a
real challenge.
Despite that, there is
tremendous demand for biofuels, and many governments are offering tax
incentives for adopting biodiesel and passing legislation demanding that
available fuels include a minimum percentage of renewable materials. China and India have set biodiesel blend
targets as high as 20 percent. As a result, the global demand for biodiesel. US
demand alone is expected to grow from 450 million gallons per year in 2007 to
1.4 billion gallons per year in 2012. Global biodiesel demand could be as high
as 37 billion gallons per year by 2016.
Poised
to take advantage of this opportunity is Ottawa
start-up Bio-Diesel Reactor (BDR) Technologies Inc.
Incorporated in 2007,
following four-and-a-half years of conceptual testing and
experimentation, BDR
is bringing innovative membrane reactor technology to
market that promises to
turn the biodiesel market on its proverbial ear.
The revolutionary new technology
at the heart of BDR Technologies is the
brainchild of two senior professors in the
University of Ottawa
Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering, Dr. André Tremblay and Dr. Marc A.
Dubé. The pair started working on the concept in 2003, applying for their
first research grant in January of that year. Over the following four years the
research, and ultimately the new company was supported by several programs, including Sustainable Development Technology
Canada (SDTC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
(NSERC), the Ontario Centres of Excellence and the Ottawa Technology Transfer
Network (OTTN) . Supported as part of
the Ontario Research Commercialization Program, OTTN has provided both proof-of-principle
funding and critical advice and mentorship in the creation of the spin-off
company, ensuring the venture has the strongest possible business foundation.
What Is Biodiesel?
Biodiesel is a clean-burning replacement for diesel fuel
that can be used to power compression-ignition engines. It is manufactured from
renewable, non-petroleum-based sources, including
- Virgin vegetable oil; most commonly canola
and soybean
oil
- Waste vegetable oil,
such as yellow grease collected from restaurants
-
Animal fats
- New 2nd generation oils
from non-food crops such as Jatropha that grow on margin lands without
displacing land currently used for food production and,
- Oil from
micro-algae, which converts CO2 into
oil using sunlight
Biodiesel can be used in a pure form
(also referred to as B100), but is typically blended with petrodiesel at low
levels, between 2% (B2) to 20% (B20).
Current
Production Process & Issues
The most common current method for producing biodiesel
involves a three-step, reversible catalytic reaction called
transesterification. Fats and oils are chemically reacted with an alcohol,
typically methanol, and a catalyst, usually sodium or potassium hydroxide
(i.e., lye), with heat, to produce an ester or biodiesel. Glycerin is also
created as a byproduct.
The catalyst is dissolved in alcohol, the alcohol/catalyst
mix is then charged into a closed reaction vessel and the feedstock is added.
The materials won’t react at room temperature, so the mix must then be heated
to just above the boiling point of the alcohol (around 65°C) to “push” the
reaction. Excess alcohol is normally required to ensure total conversion of the
fat or oil to its esters.
Cooling the reaction mixture allows for the separation of
glycerin from the biodiesel. Glycerin is much denser than biodiesel, so the two
can be gravity-separated with glycerin simply drawn off the bottom of the
settling tank. Once the glycerin and biodiesel have been separated, the excess
alcohol in each phase is removed. Once separated from the glycerin, the
biodiesel is purified by washing gently with warm water to remove residual
catalyst or soaps, dried, and sent to storage.
“The main issue in the
biodiesel industry is producing a high quality product,” says Ken Lawless, President
and CEO of BDR Technologies. The regulations
outlined by the American Society for
Testing and Materials (ASTM) – the body that sets consensus standards for fuels
in the US – sets out about 20 parameters for how the biodiesel has
to perform in the engine. Meeting ASTM parameters has been an industry problem,
especially in small and medium-sized plants, says Lawless.
Current production
processes rely on significant pre-treatment of feedstocks, brute force to push
the reaction to near completion, and significant washings to reduce impurities
in the final products. These impurities can cause sludge formation in fuel tanks and clog filters, limiting the commercial acceptance of biodiesel by petroleum retailers and engine manufacturers. Solutions to rid the final
product of these impurities are costly (e.g. distillation) and do not deal with
the problem at its source.
“There are issues with
pushing the reactions to completion: you have to get rid of the catalyst
downstream, there is a problem with soap formation, even the glycerol byproduct
is impure,” adds Tremblay. “Our process converts oil in one
step rather than three with a minimum amount of downstream processing and the
introduction of impurities.”
The BDR Solution
BDR’s technology uses a membrane reactor to maintain
the continuous separation of the biodiesel product stream from the oil/feedstock.
The cross-flow micro-porous inorganic membrane at the heart of the BDR solution
selectively retains reactants and allows for the permeation of products through
the membrane walls.
Conversion is achieved in a single reaction step
using low catalyst concentrations, which reduces soap formation and improves
yields with low grade feedstocks that have high free fatty acid content. The
membrane prevents the transport of unreacted oil and other impurities into the
product stream, eliminating the need for the biodiesel to be treated or
“washed”, ensuring production of a consistent, high quality fuel that exceeds
all international standards.
“Current production
processes dedicate a lot of time and energy to mixing the chemicals. This is
not necessary with our technology” says Tremblay. Additionally, the
membrane-based process doesn’t require the reaction to be pushed by adding extra
catalyst. “We’re exploiting a negative, making it a positive.”
The process also has a
much lower environmental foot print than conventional biodiesel processes and
eliminates the need for water washing.
The Road to Commercialization
One of the early
decisions Tremblay and Dubé had to
make was how best to take their idea to market and to help make this choice
they enlisted the aid of the University
of Ottawa Technology
Transfer Office and the OTTN.
One of the biggest pitfalls
scientists and engineers fall into is failing to recognize that it takes more
than a good idea to build a company. Step into any entrepreneurship centre and
someone will tell you that only one of every ten companies lasts more than a
few short years. Make that a technology company and the success rate falls even
lower, so having access to people who know how to establish and run a business
is critical.
To advance the
business prospects for the biodiesel technology , Joe
Irvine, Director, Technology Transfer and Business Enterprise
for the University of Ottawa and the senior executive of the OTTN, brought in Lawless
to help accelerate the business and to establish and implement the business
plan for the new venture. As former President and CEO of
Ottawa Life Sciences Council and current CEO of Epitope Capital, Lawless brings
a perspective generated over more than two decades of working with government,
investors and with research-intensive businesses.
There are several
different ways to commercialize an invention like BDR’s membrane technology.
The most common is to try to attract an existing business to buy it and let the
buyer assume all the investment – and risk – required to finish developing and
marketing it. Less common is to spin out the invention and build a company
around it.
“We had to decide how
we would construct a model that would give the technology opportunity the best
chance of success,” says Lawless. “Joe and I looked at it and agreed that the
best opportunity was in the form of a start up. We would license the technology
to the start up and then work with the inventors and the university to build
value.”
Lawless helped conduct
the due diligence around filing the patent applications and was retained as CEO
of the new venture with the mandate to develop the
business plan, assemble an appropriate management team and raise investment funds
for the new venture. In
turn, Lawless brought in Brian Radburn a chartered accountant and former senior
partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to serve as Chief Financial Officer. As
CFO, Radburn will provide the financial leadership to help BDR Technologies
grow value responsibly and in a sustainable manner.
“Spinning technology
companies out of research institutions is hard work. There are lots of ups and
downs,” says Lawless. “That’s why the early stage proof- of-principle funding
from OTTN is so valuable. The alternative is to throw the technology over the
wall and hope someone outside recognizes its value and is willing to invest in
it. And that doesn’t happen very often.”
“The important thing
was to bring in a business entrepreneur who understood the science but also has
solid business acumen and understanding of how to finance the venture. It would
be extremely difficult for the scientists to do that on their own and without
OTTN.”
What’s next?
The next step for BDR
Technologies is the building of a pilot plant to rigorously test the technology
under full production conditions. This will be accomplished thanks to $3.5
million in funding from Sustainable Technologies Development Canada – a not-for-profit
corporation created by the Government of Canada to support the development and
demonstration of emerging clean technologies.
The pilot plant will
produce about four million litres of biodiesel per year and will help demonstrate
the product at commercial scale. It will operate using multiple types of
feedstocks and will focus on optimizing plant processes before taking the product to market. The support from SDTC coupled with equity and other investments to be announced will provide sufficient funds to move the project
to the next stage.
“It’s important to
recognize that there’s more value to the technology than the technology itself,”
says Lawless. “It’s also what it brings
to the clean technology industry. The biofuels industry is still very young.
Our ability to bring these technologies in and deploy them…the sooner we can
get them deployed the more environmental impact we can have. Quite frankly this
is great Canadian technology and we want to see it deployed around the world.”
_______
BDR Technologies
BDR is an Ottawa-based clean technology company that develops, designs
and markets advanced biodiesel membrane reactor production systems for the
global biodiesel industry. The company was established in June 2007 to
commercialize the biodiesel membrane technology developed at the University of Ottawa.
For More Information on BDR Technologies contact Ken Lawless:
Tel: 613 834-0413
Cell 613 863-5105
Ken.lawless@rogers.com
Ottawa
Technology Transfer Network (OTTN)
The Ottawa Technology Transfer Network (OTTN) builds on
an informal collaboration among several academic technology transfer offices in
Ottawa to enhance the economic impact of research commercialization through the sharing of best practices; enhanced market knowledge and proactive industrial
interaction. Member Institutions include uOttawa, the Ottawa Health Research Institute
(OHRI), the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), the University of
Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI), Algonquin College, National Capital Institute of
Technology (NCIT) and the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI)
Sustainable
Development Technology Canada
SDTC is an arm’s-length foundation which has received $1.05 billion from the Government of Canada as part of its commitment to create a healthy environment and a high quality of life for all Canadians. SDTC operates two funds
aimed at the development and demonstration of innovative technological
solutions. The $550 million SD Tech Fund™ supports projects that address
climate change, air quality, clean water, and clean soil. The $500
million NextGen Biofuels Fund™ supports the establishment of first-of-kind
large demonstration-scale facilities for the production of next-generation
renewable fuels. SDTC operates as a not-for-profit corporation and has been
working with the public and private sector including
industry, academia,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the financial community and all levels
of government to achieve this mandate.
|
