Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (“MCC”; Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Hitoshi Ochi) hereby announces strategic partnerships for marketing of its zeolite membranes, ZEBREX™, for bioethanol production. The strategic partnerships consist of ICM, Inc (”ICM”; Head office: Colwich, Kansas, United States; CEO: Dave VanderGriend) for North America and MITSUI & CO., LTD. (“MITSUI”; Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Tatsuo Yasunaga) for Asia Pacific and Europe. The partnerships will accelerate MCC’s business development in the bioethanol market further on a global scale.

As the United States and Brazil leading the global market, the use of bioethanol that is derived from biomass feedstocks such as corn, sugar cane and casava 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 the United States and India.

Bioethanol is required to be dehydrated to certain extent for use as fuel. With the continuously growing market globally, the bioethanol producers will take significant advantages over ZEBREX™. ZEBREX™　being a state-of-art, continuous dehydration technology of zeolite membranes, the bioethanol producers will save 20 to 30 % of energy consumption compared with a tradition batch PSA process*, which requires periodical regenerations. ZEBREX™, through either replacement of 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 operation stability.

Known for their engineering expertise in the fuel ethanol market, ICM’s technology is used in more than half of the ethanol plants in the United States, 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™ of into the North American markets.

Mitsui has strong marketing and business network with bioethanol producers in Asia Pacific and Europe. Their strength is not limited to the bioethanol but also has in sugar and food market. MCC will promote ZEBREX™ with Mitsui to bioethanol producers who can take advantages of the technology. As a result of this partnership, one of the largest bioethanol producer in Europe, Pannonia Ethanol Zrt (Head office in Hungary), has committed to install a world largest ZEBREX™ system. Pannonia Ethanol Zrt also employs ICM technology: this ZEBREX™ integration will be one of the best showcases to represent successful partnerships revolving around ZEBREX™ in the global perspective.

MCC contributes to continuous promotion of efficient energy production and use through expanding its zeolite membranes business that these partnerships will accelerate.

*PSA (pressure swing adsorption) is a technology with traditional type A zeolite pellet. Due to an inefficiency of the PSA dehydration process, ethanol/water 50% mixture requires to be regenerated in the distillation column, which results in energy intensive process.


About ICM, Inc.
Established in 1995 and headquartered in Colwich, Kan., ICM, Inc. (“ICM”), with a regional office in Brazil, provides innovative technologies, solutions, and services to sustain agriculture and to advance renewable energy, including ethanol and feed technologies that will increase the supply of world protein. By providing proprietary process technologies to over 100 facilities globally with a combined production capacity of approximately 8.8 billion gallons of annual ethanol production and 25 million tons of annual distillers grains, ICM has become a world leader in bio-refining technologies.
For more information, please visit icminc.com.

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