Thriving in the face of adversity

摘要

On 30 October DuPont officially opened the world's largest cellulosic ethanol facility in Nevada in the US state of Iowa. Jan Koninckx, who has worked at DuPont for over 20 years and has been the global business director for biorefineries at the company since 2007, spoke to Biofuels International a few weeks before the plant's official opening. 'When I joined DuPont's advanced biofuels and cellulosic ethanol effort around eight years ago we were in the laboratory conducting experiments to turn biomass into fuel. Back then our biggest piece of equipment was about the size of a washing machine and our supply chain was in trash bags that we carried around!' Koninckx says, recalling where it all began.