Researcher says flash fermentation discovery predates Gevo patent

In Brazil, a researcher from the University of Campinas waded into the Gevo vs Butamax debate this week.

“Today I was reading the Digest on the patent trial between Gevo and Butamax,” writes research Adriano Marino, “and what is interesting is that these companies are fighting over a fermentation technology (integrated flash separation) which was firstly developed by our research group at the University of Campinas – Brazil. Gevo filed its patent (US 8,101,808 B2) on Dec. 23 2008 and our paper was published 4 months before that date on August 23 2008.

“As you can see in the attached process flow diagrams, the big “trick” on GEVO’s patent, i.e. the integrated recovery of butanol by a flash tank system, is presented previously in our paper, here.