This partnership will greatly benefit and enhance IBSS and Kior’s mutual goals of demonstrating real world solutions towards economically and environmentally sustainable production and conversion of biomass-to-biofuel.

The Integrated Biomass Supply System (IBSS) project will have completed 2 years in July and has just finished the application for renewal for the funding to continue for the next 3 years. It is likely that the grant will be renewed and work on growing, harvesting, transporting and converting biomass to liquid fuels will continue. IBSS has also recently partnered with KiOR, a biofuels company that has launched one commercial level facility in Columbus, Mississippi producing gasoline and diesel blendstocks from biomass and is planning a second facility in Natchez, Mississippi. KiOR was originally founded in 2007 by venture capitalists in partnership with Mississippi’s then Governor Haley Barbour’s assistance and support.

Kior’s mission, which is compatible with the IBSS programs’ mission, is to produce renewable drop-in fuels in a sustainable manner. Currently, they have been successful at launching a commercial scale facility and producing gasoline and diesel, however they face certain technological difficulties that IBSS researchers are already working to solve. Collaboration with KiOR will further their and IBSS’ goals of regional deployment of biofuels.

KiOR’s interests in the IBSS project are for assistance with five specific challenges including quantifying the physical and chemical composition of hardwood, pine, and switchgrasses and reconciling these properties with Kior’s processes. Kior is also hoping for assistance from IBSS with developing cost-effective moisture content reduction methods for biomass, “cleaning of biomass,” and transportation of biomass feedstocks to the biorefinery. IBSS’ team members are engaged in research that would address all three of these issues.  Finally, Kior staff indicated that, through IBSS research, they hope to gain a better understanding of how moisture content, biomass shelf life, and size reduction relate to one another so that protocols can be developed for storing and milling biomass that will maximize energy conservation, costs and biofuel yields.

Overall, this partnership will greatly benefit and enhance IBSS and Kior’s mutual goals of demonstrating real world solutions towards economically and environmentally sustainable production and conversion of biomass-to-biofuel.