The Future is Today: Biobutanol
Cobalt’s goal of developing a superior gasoline alternative has a challenging set of criteria. The ideal alternative has to be:
- Significantly improved in terms of environmental impact
- Cost-competitive to gasoline
- Easily produced in large quantities
- Produced domestically
- Compatible with the existing fuel distribution and retail infrastructure
- Seamless to the consumer in terms of engine compatibility, performance, range and accessibility
Cobalt’s proprietary biofuel production technologies satisfy these criteria when applied to biobutanol, and thus lead the transition from fossil fuels to more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
Why Biobutanol?
Cobalt’s biobutanol is a next generation biofuel that is produced by processing a broad range of non-food feedstocks, as well as more traditional feedstocks including corn and sorghum.
While first generation biofuels have introduced the potential of renewable transportation fuels, those first fuels were not developed as sustainable replacements for gasoline. Cobalt’s biobutanol moves far beyond the distribution, energy balance, performance and environmental concerns associated with first generation fuels.
The Biobutanol Reality
Cobalt is applying revolutionary advances in strain improvement, reaction management, and separation technology to make biobutanol production a sustainable commercial enterprise. These advances negate the previous drawbacks of biobutanol, principally the high cost of production.
By designing for a diversity of feedstocks, Cobalt is able to accept a range of regional, low-cost plant materials to manage feedstock expenses. Cobalt’s continuous fermentation technology makes the production of biobutanol both cost-effective and biomass-efficient. Finally, Cobalt’s innovative separations technology reduces energy input and water requirements, lowering the overall cost of production and minimizing impact on local water supplies.
The application of these Cobalt innovations is helping bring biobutanol with its higher energy density, engine compatibility, ease of distribution and reduced carbon footprint to market.