Qteros, Applied CleanTech to Harness Power of Poo to Make Ethanol

Qteros and Applied CleanTech are giving new life to municipal wastewater solids — a cleaned up term for what most of us call poo — by turning it into fuel for cars. Yes, poo-powered cars may be in our future.

That future may still be a ways off. Like other cellulosic ethanol ventures, it’s in the demonstration plant phase and has yet to prove it is in fact, commercially viable.

Still, the concept is intriguing and appears less costly than other cellulosic ethanol ventures. Plus, it’s great fodder for the watercooler — not the dinner table.

Qteros, a Marlborough, Mass.-based advanced biofuels company, and Israel-based ACT announced Tuesday a joint development project to use feedstock produced from municipal wastewater solids and turn it into a cellulosic ethanol product.

Here’s how it works:

ACT takes the solid sewage from municipal wastewater plants — a process it spent six years to develop — and recycles it into a feedstock called recyllose.

Recyllose feedstock has a high cellulose content and low moisture, which in turn makes ethanol production more efficient, according to a Qteros statement. Recyllose happens to be low in lignin, a tough substance that binds the cell walls in plants. Lignin is a hurdle in the race to create an efficient cellulosic ethanol because it’s so difficult to degrade.

The low lignin content in recyllose improves cellulosic plant efficiency by 20 percent, compared to higher lignin content feedstocks, Qteros co-founder and senior project manager Jeff Hausthor explained in a statement.

Qteros then uses its fast-acting Q microbes to convert the recyllose into cellulosic ethanol. According to the company, one ton of recyllose feedstock can make 120 to 135 gallons of ethanol.

Qteros’ microbe – found in the soil near the Quabbin Reservoir — happens to be a voracious eater and has helped increase the efficiency of cellulosic ethanol production because it eliminates the need for enzymes, Hausthor said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Typically, cellulosic ethanol is made in a two-step process. Biomass is first broken down into sugar using enzymes and then fermented into ethanol. The Q microbe, which has been tested on 20 feedstocks, knows to break the biomass down into sugar and then ferment on its own. Enzymes are expensive and drive up the cost of cellulosic ethanol production, Hausthor added.

The location and size of the demonstration plant has not been finalized, Hausthor said. ACT already has six recyllose facilities operating in the world including one in Cleveland, Ohio.

Building a demonstration plant at the Cleveland site or near Qteros’ headquarters in Massachusetts would make the most sense. But again, Hausthor stressed that nothing has been finalized.

If the demonstration plant is successful, a regular commercial facility could be operational by 2011, Hausthor added.

“We love the results, it looks very promising,” Hausthor said.

A number of Qteros’ investors certainly like its microbe technology. Energy giant BP, Battery Ventures, U.S. refiner Valero, Venrock, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family, and George Soros’ investment firm put money into the company. Last year, Qteros raised $25 million, Hausthor said.

BP and Valero are not strangers to investing in biofuel ventures. BNET Energy wrote about Valero’s investment into waste-to-fuels startup Terrabon in April. the refiner also has invested in Solix, a company that makes biofuels from algae, and ZeaChem, a cellulose-based biorefinery.

The Qteros-ACT project is promising because the cellulosic ethanol plants can be added onto any municipal wastewater facility including ones in major U.S. cities like Boston, or in smaller rural communities.

In a separate announcement, Qteros wil begin construction on a $3.2 million pilot plant in Chicopee, Mass., that will use its Q microbe to make biofuel.  This first phase will be a pre-treatment pilot facility and is expected to be in small-scale production next year, Hausthor said.

The second phase will be an integrated biorefinery able to process two tons of corn stover a day. Qteros has applied for a $22.5 million grant from the Department of Energy to fund the second phase. If successful, a large scale manufacturing plant would be built.