Feature: Business Feature: Business
British Columbia-based Lignol Innovation’s
modest size belies its status as an emerging world leader in the development of fuel grade ethanol and
multi-purpose renewable products from lignin.
By Roberta Staley
A faint chemical odour, slightly astringent but not unpleasant, fills the laboratory air at Lignol Innovations Ltd. “That’s ethanol,” says Michael Rushton, Lignol’s Chief Operating Officer. “We love it,” he adds, striding past gleaming white metal and glass lab equipment, through a heavy door into a concrete labyrinth filled with fermenters, distillers, pipes and barrels. Lignol is a Burnaby, B.C.-based, 2,140 square-metre, pilot-scale biorefinery surrounded by fragrant woodland heralding a lush West Coast summer. Inside, the scent of ethanol proclaims its own bright promise: progress, innovation and hope for a renewable, low-carbon future...
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