Oct 20 2008
CleanTech Biofuels, Inc. announces that it has fulfilled its first milestone pursuant to its exclusive worldwide sublicense agreement for technology developed at the University of California, Berkeley for converting cellulose to ethanol.
Under the License Agreement, CleanTech is required to make payments to HFTA upon meeting certain development milestones for validation and commercialization of the technology. The first milestone, which was recently met, required that CleanTech satisfactorily test the technology using equipment developed at the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently purchased by CleanTech, to generate fermentable sugars from municipal solid waste at efficiencies satisfactory to CleanTech.
The patented technology, initially developed and tested at the University of California, Berkeley, utilizes nitric acid for hydrolyzing cellulosic material, rather than sulfuric or hydrochloric acid, for the production of ethanol and other fuels from biomass in municipal solid waste. Sulfuric or hydrochloric acid is typically used in the industry for hydrolyzing biomass; however, CleanTech believes that nitric acid hydrolysis represents the cutting edge of current technology in the cellulosic ethanol industry. CleanTech also obtained a nonexclusive worldwide license to use the technology for all other feedstocks for producing ethanol.
The licensed technology is described in U.S. Patents No. 5221357, 5366558, 5536325, 5628830, and 6019900. The sublicense agreement is with HFTA, a company formed by the developers of the technology.