ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gevo, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEVO), a leading renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels company, today announced a groundbreaking agreement with The Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) to create renewable para-xylene from plant based isobutanol, which will accelerate the development of Coca-Cola’s second-generation PlantBottle™ packaging made from 100% plant-based materials. Gevo will work with Coca-Cola to enable and deliver an integrated system to produce renewable para-xylene, a key building block towards reaching Coca-Cola’s goal of creating all of their packaging from renewable materials. The work will take the technology from lab-scale to commercial scale and support Coca-Cola’s efforts to lead the beverage industry away from fossil-fuel based packaging by offering an alternative made completely from renewable resources.
“While the technology to make biobased materials in a lab has been available for many years, we believe Gevo possess technologies that have high potential to create it on a global commercial level within the next few years,” said Rick Frazier, Vice President Commercial Product Supply, The Coca-Cola Company. “This is a significant R&D investment in packaging innovation and is the next step toward our vision of creating all of our PET plastic packaging from responsibly sourced plant materials.”
Coca-Cola identified Gevo as a leader in the race to commercialize renewable PET following an exhaustive search and evaluation of technologies from around the world. The global market for PET is 54 million metric tons and has a value of $100 billion, with approximately 30% used for plastic bottles. In this next generation of PlantBottle™ packaging, Coca-Cola plans to produce bottles entirely from renewable raw materials.
“We are extremely gratified to have won the confidence of The Coca-Cola Company and are excited to support Coca-Cola’s sustainable packaging goals with this agreement to develop and commercialize technology to produce para-xylene from biobased isobutanol,” said Patrick Gruber, CEO of Gevo. “New technologies need champions. The Coca-Cola Company is in a unique position to drive and influence change in the global packaging supply chain with this development. You cannot ask for a better champion than one of the world’s most respected and admired consumer brands.”
Isobutanol is a four-carbon fermentation alcohol that can be converted into para-xylene using known chemical processes. Para-xylene is a key raw material in PET production. Gevo has previously announced supplying Japanese chemical giant Toray with lab-scale quantities of renewable para-xylene. Toray has successfully converted Gevo’s para-xylene into PET films and fibers.
About Gevo
Gevo is converting existing ethanol plants into biorefineries to make renewable building block products for the chemical and fuel industries. The Company plans to convert renewable raw materials into isobutanol and renewable hydrocarbons that can be directly integrated on a “drop in” basis into existing chemical and fuel products to deliver environmental and economic benefits. Gevo is committed to a sustainable biobased economy that meets society’s needs for plentiful food and clean air and water. For more information, visit www.gevo.com
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include statements that are not purely statements of historical fact, and can sometimes be identified by our use of terms such as “intend,” “expect,” “plan,” “estimate,” “future,” “strive” and similar words. These forward-looking statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of Gevo and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements involve many risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from what may be expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. For a further discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of Gevo in general, see the risk disclosures in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Gevo for the year ended December 31, 2010, and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the SEC by Gevo.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50108323&lang=en