Mitsubishi Chemical Enters Partnerships for Zeolite Membrane

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) has entered into strategic partnerships with ICM Inc and Mitsui & Co Ltd, for marketing zeolite membranes, Zebrex, for bioethanol production.

ICM for North America and Mitsui for Asia-Pacific and Europe. The partnerships will accelerate MCC's business development in the bioethanol market further on a global scale.

With US and Brazil leading the global market, the use of bioethanol derived from biomass feedstocks such as corn, sugar cane and cassava has been wide-spreading due to its carbon neutrality and potential to reduce greenhouse gas emission. Further, what has been called the "second-generation bioethanol," bioethanol from non-edible feedstocks is evolving in US and India.

Bioethanol is required to be dehydrated to a certain extent for use as fuel. With the continuously growing market globally, bioethanol producers will significantly take advantage of Zebrex.

Zebrex being a state-of-art, continuous dehydration technology of zeolite membranes, bioethanol producers will save 20 percent to 30 percent of energy consumption compared with a traditional batch pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process, which requires periodical regenerations.

Zebrex through either replacement of the PSA process or integration to an existing bioethanol plant, allows bioethanol producers to reduce carbon footprints and operation costs while increasing production through improvement in efficiency and operational stability.

Known for its engineering expertise in the fuel ethanol market, ICM's technology is used in more than half of ethanol plants in US, where the largest bioethanol production is taking place. The combination of MCC's Zebrex dehydration technology and ICM's process integration ability will speed the penetration of Zebrex into the North American market.