Business Concentrates Butamax to establish U.S. isobutyl alcohol The company hopes to entice ethanol makers to switch to the higher-molecular-weight alcohol Seeking a springboard to commercialize its fermentation route to isobutyl alcohol, Butamax Advanced Biofuels has purchased Nesika Energy, which operates a corn-based ethanol plant in Scandia, Kan. Butamax, a joint venture between DuPont and BP, plans to convert part of the facility to make isobutyl alcohol. The company hopes to have isobutyl alcohol production in place by 2019. It won’t say what the plant’s capacity will be until it gets further along in the engineering process. Isobutyl alcohol is considered an attractive alternative to ethanol as a gasoline component. It has a higher energy density and is less sensitive to moisture than ethanol. Isobutyl alcohol is also used as a solvent and chemical intermediate. Butamax opened a demonstration plant in Hull, England, at a cost of $50 million in 2010. Four years later, it installed corn processing equipment at Highwater Ethanol’s plant in Lamberton, Minn., but didn’t end up making isobutyl alcohol. Butamax aims to license its technology to ethanol makers seek-
Butamax intends to convert part of an ethanol plant it purchased in Scandia, Kan., to isobutyl alcohol production.
ing to switch to a more profitable product. The partnership estimates that 200 corn ethanol plants in the U.S. alone can be converted to isobutyl alcohol. A patent infringement suit between Butamax and Gevo, which has its own fermentation process for making isobutyl alcohol, slowed progress for both companies. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where in 2015 Gevo won a favorable ruling. Later that year, the two firms agreed to cross license technology and end legal proceedings. In 2010, Gevo purchased an ethanol plant in Luverne, Minn., intending to convert it to isobutyl alcohol production, but the company has struggled with the switch. Gevo produced just 1.7 million L of isobutyl alcohol last year, compared to 54 million L of ethanol. James Evangelow, head of the consulting firm Chemical Strategies, says the prospects for isobutyl alcohol aren’t as bright today as they were in the late 2000s when Butamax and Gevo were founded. “You are dealing with an environment where oil is half the price it was when they first thought about this,” he adds, noting that BP could create a market for the alcohol by blending it into its fuels.—ALEX TULLO
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | APRIL 10, 2017
ENERGY STORAGE
Toyota hunts for novel battery materials Toyota’s research arm, Toyota Research Institute, will invest about $35 million over the next four years to develop advanced battery materials and fuel-cell catalysts. Toyota has been a leader in developing hybrid electric cars such as the Prius, but in the full-electric car market, its battery technology trails that of Tesla. Toyota hopes to close the gap with research that merges computational materials modeling, new sources of experimental data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Its goal is to reduce the time it takes to develop new materials. Toyota’s move to use computer technology for developing novel chemistries follows BASF’s recent decision to buy a supercomputer to accelerate research in fields such as catalysis. Toyota will collaborate with Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University at Buffalo, the University of Connecticut, and the U.K. materials science company Ilika. Ilika has been working with Toyota on solid-state batteries since 2008. The partners were recently granted a U.S. patent on a vapor deposition process for producing solid-state batteries directly from basic elements. Further joint patents in the field are pending, Ilika says. Toyota says it will work with its partners in three areas: new models and materials for batteries and fuel cells; novel uses of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and informatics for materials development; and automated materials discovery systems that integrate simulation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Jens Norskov, professor of engineering at Stanford University and director of the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science & Catalysis, will help adapt artificial intelligence to develop catalysts for fuel cells. The project is an “opportunity to drastically advance the use of databases and machine-learning methods in materials discovery,” Norskov says.—ALEX SCOTT
MOLECULE OF THE MOMENT
FDA approves first deuterated drug Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has won FDA approval of Austedo (deutetrabenazine), a deuterated version of tetrabenazine, which was first identified 50 years O ago. The drug is intended to treat involuntary N O writhing movements, or H chorea, in people with CD3 Huntington’s disease. The O six deuteriums replace Teva’s Austedo (deutetrabenazine) hydrogen and give the molecule a longer lifetime in the body than tetrabenazine does. Both drugs inhibit a vesicular transporter that regulates dopamine in the brain; neither cures the disease (see page 18). CD3
CREDIT: BUTAMAX
BIOBASED CHEMICALS
