Piedmont Biofuels, Novozymes will turn sludge to fuel

BY JOHN MURAWSKI - Staff Writer
Tags: biodiesel
PITTSBORO -- A partnership between two Triangle companies to turn sludge into fuel could boost the fortunes of the nation's struggling biodiesel industry.

Their success hinges on a new process for refining the thick grease that's flushed out of restaurant kitchen drains - long deemed too corroded to be converted into vehicle fuel.

On Friday, Piedmont Biofuels in Pittsboro unveiled a new processor that use enzymes supplied by Novozymes, a Danish biochemical company with its U.S. headquarters in nearby Franklinton, to chemically convert the gunk. It's the first time the process has been tried on a commercial scale.

Piedmont Biofuels will test the device for a year to make sure there are no glitches. If it works as planned, Piedmont Biofuels could manufacture its enzymatic processor for other biodiesel companies. It already manufactures other equipment used in the processing of biofuels.

The experiment also presents a potential business opportunity for Novozymes. If enzymatic processing takes off, Novozymes could sell its enzymes to a host of biodiesel producers, said Hans Christian Holm, the company's senior manager for oils and fats.

"It could be a substantial deal," said W. Steven Burke, president of the N.C. Biofuels Center. "It's an enormously promising technological step."

Biofuels - ethanol and biodiesel - have been touted as a promising energy resource that can offset imported petroleum-based fuels. But the industry has been hobbled by high production costs associated with converting corn or other crops into ethanol, and vegetable oils into biodiesel.

In 2008, Piedmont Biofuels produced a record 1.2 million gallons of biodiesel but expects to produce only about one-third that amount this year. A major reason for the production drop is the expiration of a federal incentive that paid biodiesel producers $1 a gallon for biodiesel output.

About half the state's biofuels producers have gone out of business or idled production because of the expired subsidy, said Leif Forer, Piedmont Biodiesel's chief of engineering and a founding board member of the N.C. Biodiesel Association.

Piedmont Biofuels, which sells to a commercial distributor and a local cooperative, survived, but shrank from 30 to 14 employees.

Grease too costly

Without the subsidy, Piedmont Biofuels can't afford to buy restaurant grease, which costs about 16 cents a gallon on the open market. Instead, it can only use the grease it gets for free from more than 100 restaurants within a 100-mile radius of its Pittsboro office. A gallon of fryer oil produces about a gallon of biodiesel.



Sludge price is right

But trapped drain sludge costs about 5 cents a gallon and would be economically feasible. Restaurants in the state produce about 8 million gallons of the gunk.. That's why the enzymes represent a potential breakthrough for the industry.