Project description
Fibrous waste from pulp mills is getting a new life in valuable products of diverse industries
Waste streams in pulp mills contain fibrous cellulose and hemicellulose (polysaccharides or complex sugars) found in plant cell walls. Recovery and re-use of these compounds represents an opportunity for the creation of new and promising value chains that will help industries and the environment. VEHICLE is developing technology to utilise the compounds as feedstock for the paper and pulp industry and to make chemicals and specialty sugars for other industries. Valorisation of three different biomass feedstocks and utilisation of the technology in three different types of factories will create nine new value chains. Aside from delivery of more than five end applications, VEHICLE will also demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of the developed technology.
Objective
VEHICLE will demonstrate novel biotechnological and non-biotechnological technologies for providing and valorising low value sugar streams, thereby enabling significant progress in holistic & sustainable utilisation of lignocellulosic biomass. The main goals for this project are to demonstrate valorisation of dilute hemicellulose-containing prehydrolysate streams from pulp mills, which are currently waste streams with little value. The demonstration will take place by Ecohelix at the Domsjö Fabriker dissolving pulp mill in Sweden. In addition to widen the business and market opportunities of existing biorefinery investments by demonstrating the applicability of their sugar streams in several downstream options. Sugar streams will be provided by Avantium and Graanul from their demonstration and flagship facilities that are currently under construction. Subsequently the use of hemicellulose polymers from prehydrolysis streams in different pulp and paper product applications will be demonstrated by Kemira as well as the conversion of hemicellulose and cellulose based sugars into intermediate and building block chemicals – glycols (MEG and MPG), butanediol and long chain diacids – as well as into specialty sugars (glucosone, fructose) by Metgen, Avantium and Novamont. VEHICLE project will give special attention to secure the market demand and marketability of the produced intermediate molecules by demonstrating their use in a minimum of 5 end applications. In all 3 business cases VEHICLE maximises the weighted % of valorised feedstock, by covering more than one component and more than one product. UVIC will utilize well established LCA methodologies to assess the environmental and economic impacts of the developed products and processes. VEHICLE is based on sound business cases and business plans of three very promising value chains demonstrated by Ecohelix/Kemira, Avantium and Novamont. Combined with the 3 feedstock sources, up to 9 new value chains can be created.
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Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
1014 BV Amsterdam
Netherlands
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.