The 50:50 joint venture of US chemical company DuPont (NYSE: DD) and UK oil major BP (NYSE: BP), called Butamax, has opened a laboratory in Sao Paulo state’s Paulinia municipality for the development of biobutanol based on sugarcane.

The laboratory will target industrial scale to supply the export market and is located inside DuPont’s technology and innovation center, which was opened in 2009 for R&D into fluoropolymers, advanced fibers, industrial and engineering polymers, chemical solutions, nonwovens and titanium applications.

Biobutanol can be obtained from a variety of biomass feedstock, such as sugarcane, corn, wheat or cellulose. Brazilian sugarcane has proved to be an economic and efficient source to make biobutanol, Butamax CEO Tim Potter said during the laboratory’s opening ceremony.

Biobutanol is generally blended with gasoline to be used as a biofuel for cars and other vehicles, but it can also originate other chemicals, DuPont’s R&D VP for Latin America, John Julio Jansen, told BNamericas.

The biobutanol laboratory is the first step towards industrial scale, which could be followed by the implementation of a pilot plant, Jansen explained, adding: “As we already have the laboratory in Brazil and a pilot plant in Hull [in the UK], we still don’t know whether this intermediate step will be necessary. We might go straight to industrial scale production.”

According to Jansen, there are three possible ways of reaching industrial scale: constructing an entirely new plant for biobutanol production, converting an existing ethanol plant for biobutanol output, or expanding an ethanol mill by adding new equipment for biobutanol.

The third option, which would include Butamax technology transfer, is the most likely, Jansen said.

Brazilian biobutanol is expected to be ready for commercialization in 2013-14, according to Potter. Butamax forecasts that from the start of commercialization through 2020, some 7.5Bl will be sold to the US, Asia and Europe. Total output will be exported.

Butamax was created in 2009 and is headquartered in Delaware, in the US.

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