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Ecological Solutions for Recovery of Secondary Raw Materials from Post-consumer Fibreboards

Project description

Innovative recycling technologies for fibreboard waste

Medium-density fibreboards have become the backbone of furniture building. As such, fibreboard waste has been growing exponentially. However, there are no commercially viable recycling methods for end-of-life fibreboards. The EU-funded EcoReFibre project will develop and demonstrate innovative environmentally sound and commercially viable recycling technologies for fibreboard waste. The consortium will involve leading research institutes, companies and European associations. The project will validate and demonstrate these technologies in an operational environment as system prototypes or in the relevant industrial environment. EcoReFibre is significant to Europe's wood-based panel and wood recycling sectors due to various interlinked market challenges in creating secondary materials from wood waste. These technologies will be transferrable and exploitable for many other biobased industries.

Objective

The goal of EcoReFibre is to develop and demonstrate innovative demos for environmentally sound and commercially viable recycling of end-of-life fibreboards, which currently have no commercially viable recycling methods. The quantities of fibreboard waste are growing exponentially in line with the growth in production capacity, and it is highly likely that more than 60 million tons of fibreboard waste have been created in Europe the last 5 years. This has caught the European recycling sector off-guard. EcoReFibre is crucial to Europe's wood-based panel and wood recycling sectors because of various inter-linked market challenges of the current situation for creating secondary materials from wood waste. EcoReFibre builds a strong pan-European consortium bringing together leading research institutes, companies and European associations who will develop and demonstrate a range of recycling technologies for waste fibreboard. Validation and demonstration of the technologies will take place in an operational environment as system prototypes (TRL7) or in the relevant industrial environment (TRL6). These include a sorting line that is able to efficiently sort post-consumer wood waste, extraction technologies for secondary materials (calibrated wood fines and wood fibres) from the sorted waste fractions, and conversion to valuable products, i.e. various fibreboard and insulation products, particleboard and novel biocomposites. As a major impact, the secondary fibres will substitute up to 25% of the virgin fibres currently used in the manufacture of new fibreboard. The economic viability of the technologies is achieved through a synergistic circular economy approach that exploits multiple valorisation pathways of secondary raw materials. The novel fibreboard recycling technologies are transferrable and exploitable for many other biobased industries. Environmental and social impacts and benefits are integrated into a life cycle perspective.

Coordinator

SVERIGES LANTBRUKSUNIVERSITET
Net EU contribution
€ 1 079 782,00
Address
ALMAS ALLE 8
750 07 Uppsala
Sweden

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Region
Östra Sverige Östra Mellansverige Uppsala län
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 1 079 782,50

Participants (20)