Second life of wood: technology to dissolve waste wood to get raw materials

Project Information

BioFlex

Grant agreement ID: 836211

DOI

10.3030/836211

Project closed

EC signature date 20 November 2018

Start date 1 November 2018

End date 30 April 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

LIXEA LIMITED
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BioFlex (Second life of wood: technology to dissolve waste wood to get raw materials)

Reporting period: 2018-11-01 to 2019-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In order to combat climate change and environmental degradation and pollution, governments and companies around the globe have pledged to decarbonise their economy and some have outlined a clear goal to move towards a fully renewable economy, including a bio-based chemical and fuel sector. However, with high raw material costs compared to the petrochemical industry, the bio-based industries have been struggling to win over markets. Thus, the use of currently unwanted or underused waste materials represents a promising opportunity to drastically reduce the cost of bio-derived products.
Only 50% of the 70M tonnes of European waste wood can currently be recycled, resulting in disposal costs of around £1B annually. In addition, over 1B tonnes of waste biomass are available globally every year in the form of forestry and agricultural residues. These materials can be used as a replacement for crude oil to produce common chemicals, new materials and sustainable fuels. However, effective and economical conversion technologies are required to realise the potential these materials hold.
So called lignocellulosic biomass is comprised of three main polymers: lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose. For its effective valorisation, these three components are to be separated. Cellulose is a widely used material for the production of paper, hygiene products and textiles. Other applications include various packaging materials, films, thickeners, emulsifiers and additives to improve properties of plastics. Lignin hold great promise as a starting material for glues and adhesives or the use in thermoplastics. Hemicellulose can be turned into a variety of bulk and specialty chemicals.
The overall objective of the project was to evaluate the BioFlex process, a chemical technology that separates the three components, for its market potential and to produce a roadmap for its further development. The market potential was to be assessed both for the direct sales of the process outputs (cellulose and lignin) as well as for the purpose of selling the technology (licensing).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During this project, the market requirements, volumes and values for lignin and cellulose were studied in more detail and the most promising markets identified. Contact was established with key market players and samples of cellulose and lignin were prepared and sent out to obtain customer feedback. Pricing strategies and characteristics of competing products were studied and compared to our offering.
Customer engagement was further strengthened with potential licensors of the technology. An engineering documentation was produced for two potential customers and we are now looking to proceed to running technical trials. Internally, a techno economic study was carried out to quantify the benefit of our technology compared to the status quo.
During the project the team was grown to include three engineers, a head of product development cellulose and a head of product development lignin.
A SWOT analysis was carried out and contingencies established where possible. Additionally a freedom to operate search was carried out and the regulatory landscape studied to identify further potential hurdles. Based on the findings, a clear plan was established to move forward, including the conceptual design of a pilot plant, the search for potential pilot plant sites, the search for customers and partners who could co-invest into a pilot plant and the associated funding and time requirements.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

A number of technologies for the production of chemicals and fuels from non-food biomass are being developed, some of which are running pilot or first commercials plants. These technologies are almost exclusively limited to using relatively easily processed agricultural residues which are expensive due to competing uses as animal feed, resulting in high end-product costs, reliance on subsidies, or long pay-back periods. Our technology can make use of low- to negative-cost feedstocks such as unwanted waste wood and sawdust from timber mills, resulting in a significantly reduced production cost of bio-derived products and short pay-back times (ca. 1.5 years for a plant of typical capacity) while not relying on subsidies. At the same time, landfill and incineration of waste wood is avoided, contributing to a circular economy.
We offer the sustainable production of bio-derived products and as such a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional petrochemicals. Our process will give the bio-renewable industry a much needed low-cost input material and will eventually enable the wider deployment of biodegradable plastics and renewable chemicals.
Since we are diverting wood waste from going to landfill and incineration we reduce methane emissions from landfills and CO2 produced from incinerators. As a result, our process outputs have a very low to negative carbon footprint. There is near zero waste from the process as we focus on recovering all components of the wood in a usable form, including the heavy metals. This also results in much reduced air and soil pollution and improved air quality and will help achieve governmental and industrial waste reduction targets.
Through our technology we can reduce our dependence on oil imports while creating domestic jobs in the cleantech sector.

Bioflex process