American Process Inc.

American Process Inc is prominent in the cellulosic biorefinery field. Our proprietary process, AVAP™ (American Value Added Pulping) co-produces pulp and ethanol from wood in an integrated biorefinery application.

AVAP™ utilizes alcohol sulfite cooking liquor to fractionate softwood chips into three lignocellulosic components. An addition of alcohol speeds the pulping, while preserving the cellulose strength. Volatile cooking chemicals are stripped and reused in the cooking process at a high recovery rate. Lignosulfonates are precipitated and burned to produce process energy. The remaining liquid fraction contains hydrolyzed hemicelluloses. This sugar rich solution is fermented to yield annually up to 22.6 million gallons of bioethanol from a mill produciing 500 tpd of pulp. The value of converted hemicelluloses is 4-5 times greater for society as ethanol than as presently burned. Biomass from the surrounding wood processing plants as well as logging residues can provide energy self-sufficiency for the mill.

Process integration and efficient recovery of chemicals are the cornerstones for the low overall cost. Because ethanol processing occurs concurrently with pulping, the heat and chemical input are split between the two products, without sacrificing the yield on either product. Flexibility to swing yield between the two products provides financial stability over the market conditions. Additional biofuels and chemicals are obtainable from the process if the economics are favorable.

Besides our own technology we believe that there will be many credible technologies to be used for co-producing cellulosic ethanol with pulp and paper. Therefore, we are continuing to gather know-how in the fields of gasification and hemicelluloses pre-extraction by collaborating with the leading biorefinery academic institutions and forest products corporations.

We believe the right technology for each case will depend on the local economic energy prices, the paper product mix, the wood species and the existing site configuration.

Simulating ethanol production in pulp and paper mills and doing “what if” scenarios is critical in order to achieve an efficient design. American Process Inc has the only commercial simulator that simulates pulp and paper and ethanol in one program, apiMAX™.