Bioindustrial Innovation Canada has won funding approval for a major biomass to sugars project in Sarnia.
It's hoped the initiative at the Sarnia-Lambton Campus of the Western University Research Park will ultimately bring a full scale, commercial cellulosic sugar plant to southern Ontario by 2018.
The project, expected to be complete by the end of October 2015, is funded in part through Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial initiative.
Other funding partners include the Grain Farmers of Ontario, the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Cooperative, BioAmber Inc., Ontario Agri-Food Technologies and the Province of Alberta.
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada Executive Director, Dr. Murray McLaughlin, says their evaluation and recommendations over the coming months will consider economics, availability and supply of non-food biomass such as corn stover and wheat straw, available conversion technologies and potential markets.