By Matt Thompson
June 11, 2019
Novozymes, a yeast and enzyme provider, announced this week at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo it’s new products: Fortiva, a new alpha-amylase, and Innova Force, a new yeast that is part of the Innova platform announced by Novozymes last year.
“With Force, we have an even stronger genetic backbone that delivers more robustness, but tolerates even higher temperatures than our previous yeasts, Drive and Lift, did,” said Brian Brazeau, vice president of biofuels commercial North America for Novozymes. “It has advanced enzyme activities that the industry would expect from Novozymes that the industry has never seen before, enabling more residual starch conversion, which ethanol producers would see as lower residual starch.”
Another innovation Force brings to the market is that it’s available in both dry and cream form. “We’re really excited to be able to bring customers the choice of being able to use dry yeast without having to compromise performance compared to cream,” Brazeau said.
Fortiva allows producers to use high temperatures during liquefaction, while maintaining enzyme performance, according to Brazeau “In the past, if ethanol producers wanted to run at higher temperatures, they could trade off with the overall performance of the enzyme and wouldn’t solubilize as much starch, which shows up for an ethanol producer as lower starch conversion and lower ethanol yields,” he said. “With our enzyme, they don’t have to make that tradeoff anymore.”
Brazeau said innovation at Novozymes continues. “We already have other next generation yeasts that we’re testing in the market, and we have a number of different enzyme molecules, both alpha-amylase and glucoamylases and complementary activities that we’re also testing in the market,” he said. “So, we are really pushing to bring even new innovations beyond these. This is certainly not the end.”
Read the original article: Novozymes Unveils New Alpha-Amylase, Yeast at FEW