The core of the Biocaldol’s technology are discrete yet closely related thermophilic microorganisms designed for the production of bioethanol integrated into a simple fermentation system that can be retrofitted to existing processes.

The Biocaldol process offers significant advantages:

• Substantially lower raw material cost and feedstock flexibility – Conventional ethanol fermentations use sugars from food crops as raw material. The feedstock value and the maturity of the technology mean that there is little scope for cost reduction. Biocaldol’s novel process can also utilise sugars found in non-food biomass, which are currently waste of little or no residual value. The non-edible plant portions comprise of carbohydrates (normally C5 carbohydrates) that are not in the form that can be readily fermented using conventional yeast technology without highly genetic manipulation. Biocaldol’s proprietary micro-organisms can convert both the edible C6 carbohydrates and the C5 carbohydrates. This allows greater availability of ‘fermentable carbohydrates’ enabling Biocaldol’s to produce ethanol at more competitive rates than existing processes. It is estimated that ethanol produced from lignocellulosic biomass using Biocaldol’s proprietary technology would be 30% to 50% cheaper than ethanol produced by yeast fermentation.

• More efficient fermentation – The metabolic rate of Biocaldol’s microorganism is faster than that of yeast resulting in greater production efficiency. The fermentation process has been shown to yield in excess of 0.4 g. ethanol per g. sugar from lignocellulosic feedstocks, which compares well with that of conventional yeast fermentation processes.

• Leading Technology – Biocaldol’s is developing unique process control parameters to allow optimisation of its micro-organisms for selected crop and plant waste materials

• Environmentally friendly – Biocaldol technology uses renewable waste biomass as raw material and converts most of this into ethanol and useful by-products. The high-temperature process is energy-saving, so it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions compared with conventional ethanol fermentations.

• Product Quality – Unlike some highly engineered yeast fermentation technologies, Biocaldol’s miro-organims have been awarded GRAS Status by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA). GRAS status is considered to be a one of the safest classifications for micro-organism

• Valuable by-products – All the by-products from Biocaldol’s technology have commercial applications.