A New Vision:
PureVision Partnership Bringing New Technology to Alabama

PureVision Technology, Inc., a Colorado-based biorefining company that has developed a truly unique way to turn biomass into energy and bioproducts, helped the AU Center for Bioproducts and Bioenergy find better ways to unleash the power and potential of Alabama’s natural resources.

The Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts installed a one-of-its-kind PureVision biomass fractionation unit—a device that takes lignocellulosic biomass such as wood, agricultural wastes, and other dedicated energy crops and separates them into the basic building blocks of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin that can be used to make fuels, plastics, paper, and myriad other possible products for the future.

The PureVision process is non-polluting and reduces the need for chemicals and water. It speeds up conversion time and is a closed-loop process that minimizes waste and reagent use.

“Our interest is to look at our regional feedstocks and learn how this process can create new products from our natural resources,” said Steve Taylor, director of the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts. The long-term goal is to continue the collaboration with PureVision to find new uses for the fractionation technology and its resulting products.

The unit is housed on the AU campus in the Forest Products Laboratory on Devall Drive and is part of a laboratory that explores all sorts of ways to turn renewable natural resources into energy and fuel.

Forestry residue (limbs, tops and small trees) is an excellent source of biomass, particularly in the Southeastern U.S.