Vancouver, British Columbia – Biorefining company Lignol Energy Corporation of B.C. has completed the first “end-to-end” production of cellulosic ethanol from wood chips from its fully-integrated, industrial-scale pilot plant in Burnaby.

The production of cellulosic ethanol from Canadian wood chips followed the plant construction phase that began in June 2008, and the start-up phase that began in April 2009. This represents the first end-to-end production of ethanol using all of the unit operations of Lignol’s unique, proprietary technology.

Lignol operates one of only a handful of fully integrated cellulosic ethanol pilot plants in the world. It intends to operate the pilot plant under a wide range of operating parameters to process various non-food feedstocks, using various equipment configurations, enzyme formulations and process conditions to optimize yield.

“Achieving the first production of cellulosic ethanol from the pilot plant is a significant milestone for Lignol,” said Ross MacLachlan, president and CEO. “It is imperative that before embarking on any major capital investment in a larger-scale plant, information is gained from a pilot plant to understand and mitigate the associated scale-up risk. The information we are generating from our pilot plant will provide Lignol with a significant competitive advantage and will allow us to validate cost and performance assumptions to accelerate our path to commercialization.”