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Global Bioenergies announces break-through in direct biological production of butadiene

DGAP-News: Global Bioenergies S.A. / Key word(s): Miscellaneous/Market
launch
Global Bioenergies announces break-through in direct biological
production of butadiene

26.11.2014 / 18:00

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Global Bioenergies announces break-through in direct biological production
of butadiene

Evry, November 26th, 2014 - Global Bioenergies (Alternext Paris: ALGBE)
announces having succeeded in the production of bio-sourced butadiene by
direct fermentation. It is the first time ever an entirely biological
production process - i.e. without any chemical step- is reported for
butadiene, one of the most important petrochemical building blocks.

Butadiene is a key platform molecule of the petrochemical industry with a
world-wide market of over 10 million metric tons per year. As of today,
butadiene is exclusively obtained from fossil resources, principally
through extraction from naphtha cracking. Given the decrease in naphtha
cracking capacities, there is a need for alternative routes to butadiene.
In this context Global Bioenergies has signed in 2011 a collaboration
agreement with Synthos (Warsaw Stock Exchange: SNS), a leader in the
production of butadiene-derived rubber products, to develop a direct
fermentation route allowing a cost-effective transformation of renewable
resources into butadiene. Since such a direct biological route does not
exist in nature, Global Bioenergies first had to invent a new metabolic
pathway comprised of a series of non-natural enzymatic reactions. This step
was successfully achieved in December 2012.

The next step consisted in improving the activity of those enzymes and
implementing them into a bacterial strain.

Global Bioenergies today announces having created such a proprietary
production strain. This strain was placed in a lab-scale fermentation
device, and upon the addition of glucose, the presence of butadiene in the
off-gases was detected. This is the first time ever that the production of
butadiene by direct fermentation from renewable resources has been
reported.

Chief Technology Officer Frédéric Pâques comments: "We now have in our
hands a prototype process for the direct biological conversion of renewable
resources into butadiene. We expect that this butadiene program will deploy
in the next years as did our isobutene process, our most mature asset now
operated in an industrial pilot. Direct fermentation of butadiene has major
inherent advantages translating into better economics. We expect to
demonstrate these in an industrial environment in the next few years."

Jarosław Rogoża, R&D Director & Member of the Board at Synthos adds: "We
have joined this program in 2011 when it was still in the discovery stage
and are very glad it has since then followed the planned trajectory. We
consider that the program is now significantly de-risked. We are looking
forward to see how the program will behave in the next phase, dedicated to
the optimization and scale-up of the process."



About GLOBAL BIOENERGIES

Global Bioenergies is one of the few companies worldwide, and the only one
in Europe, that is developing a process to convert renewable resources into
hydrocarbons through fermentation. The Company initially focused its
efforts on the production of isobutene, one of the most important
petrochemical building blocks that can be converted into fuels, plastics,
organic glass and elastomers. Global Bioenergies continues to improve the
yield of its process which is now being tested in its first industrial
pilot. The company also replicated its success in enzyme discovery to
propylene as well as butadiene and is looking to continue with other
members of the gaseous olefins family, key molecules at the heart of
petrochemical industry. Global Bioenergies is listed on Alternext, Euronext
Paris (FR0011052257 - ALGBE).

Should you like to be kept informed, subscribe to our news feed on
www.global-bioenergies.com

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobalBioenergi

Contact

GLOBAL BIOENERGIES
Thomas Buhl
Head of Business Development
Tel : + 33 (0) 1 64 98 20 50
Email : [e-mail]



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299901 26.11.2014