A large project is beginning to develop special yeasts for first and second generation ethanol, and also corn ethanol, within an agreement signed between Unicamp and the Chinese state-owned company Sinochem, a chemical and energy conglomerate that has been operating since 2011 in the Brazil. The research will be conducted at the Genomics and Expression Laboratory (LGE), which received an investment of around R$ 4,7 million from the investment clause in research, development and innovation contained in the oil exploration, development and production contracts and gas (Law nº 9.478/1997). The contract lasts 24 months.
“Ethanol is the molecule that will make it possible to replace oil. Sinochem is a giant in the oil sector, but recognizes that it will be necessary to transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources. The company wants to be prepared to operate in this new world”, explains professor Gonçalo Amarante Guimarães Pereira, coordinator of LGE. “Based on the experience of our laboratory, I imagine that in this project we will obtain objective products to be placed on the market, with the development of plants that will be the future of the company’s business transition, from oil to bioenergy.”
Thiago Rodrigues, head of staff at Sinochem, informed Dean Marcelo Knobel that the company owns 40% of the Peregrino Consortium, in the Campos basin, which is the eighth in production in the country and operated by the Norwegian Equinor. “Currently, Sinochem sees the need to diversify its portfolio, trying to enter the renewable energy market. The objective is to generate proprietary technology for commercial application, transforming R&D into business here in Brazil. We selected some partners and this project with Unicamp is very well ranked, we are very confident that it will yield good results.”
Upon learning that Sinochem is based in Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Knobel joked that the company should come to Campinas, especially because Unicamp has a thousand Mandarin students. “We also have good groups working and Chinese companies setting up here. I often say that it is important to always start a partnership with one foot after the other, slowly, so as not to cause rush and to establish that trust, which is fundamental. I thank you for your trust in our team, which will dedicate itself to the matter and will certainly have good results.”
Professor Marco Aurélio Pinheiro Lima, responsible for the master plan for the Argentina farm, an area adjacent to the Barão Geraldo campus acquired by Unicamp, offered to visit Sinochem's headquarters and explain how the International Hub for Sustainable Development is being built in Campinas . “The city embraced the project strongly and, instead of being the University's territory, it now belongs to the entire neighborhood, where the CNPEM and its bioethanol laboratory, the Santander data center and the CPQD are located. It is a territory whose spirit of development is the technology of the future.”
corn ethanol
Asked by the dean of Unicamp about Sinochem's challenge in the face of the trade war between the United States and China, Thiago Rodrigues said that the company sees the issue as an opportunity. “That’s why we’re looking so carefully at biofuel. We added corn to this project, which previously only involved sugarcane, precisely because American ethanol has always supplied China, but recently, due to taxation, the fuel has become very expensive. In fact, several companies here have already started exporting ethanol there.”
Professor Gonçalo Pereira notes that Brazil started producing corn ethanol just four years ago and, in 2019, it should reach almost 1,8 billion liters. “The expectation is that in ten years production will reach 8 to 10 billion liters. The central region of the country started to produce a lot of corn, and very cheaply (half the price in the United States), which led the Americans to install plants here. The Brazilians realized this and are now producing corn in the soybean off-season (the so-called off-season corn), without the need to expand areas. Another detail is that to produce corn ethanol, Americans use natural gas (fossil carbon that comes from oil) in their plants, while we use eucalyptus. In addition to being cheap, ours is much cleaner, completely renewable.”
According to João Monnerat, specialist in Biofuels and New Business Development at Sinochem, the choice of Unicamp as a partner is due to its recognition among the best institutions both from a scientific point of view and integration with industry. “Professor Gonçalo’s group, in particular, played a great role in the second generation ethanol industry for Brazil – which is an increasingly relevant subject. The research carried out in the laboratory resulted in innovations that are applied on the factory floor and our idea is the same: from R&D, generate value for our new businesses in the biofuels area”.
For the Chinese state-owned company, Ferlaque Fonseca, project analyst, and Glauce Nascimento, project coordinator in Brazil, also participated in the meeting to announce the agreement.
