Bioethanol plant opens in northern Italy

The world’s largest bioethanol plant using agricultural residue opened in northern Italy on Wednesday, announced by Beta Renewables, a joint venture by Italian chemical company Mossi Ghisolfi Group and Danish biochemical company Novozymes, the world’s largest producer of industrial enzymes.

The factory can produce 75 million liters of cellulosic ethanol annually from agricultural waste, which makes it the largest of its kind worldwide. According to the company, it is the first plant in the world to be designed and built to produce bioethanol from agricultural residue and energy crops at commercial scale using enzymatic conversion.

Beta Renewables Chairman and CEO Guido Ghisolfi said: “We will continue to commercially expand Beta Renewables’ core technology throughout the world, and we are very confident at this stage, given the demand we see around the globe.”

The plant uses wheat straw, rice straw and reeds to produce ethanol.

The new factory’s construction company, Chemtex Engineering Co Ltd, said it will start building factories in China next year using the same technology.