Project description
A novel biomass processing method on the path to commercialisation
Finland-based company CH-Bioforce Oy has developed a revolutionary technology for converting all biomass components into high-value products in an economically profitable way. The technology is flexible in size and can utilise practically any kind of biomass as feedstock, e.g. wood from birch, pine, spruce and eucalyptus, and even wheat straw or bagasse. It thus offers a renewable and cost-competitive option to replace fossil and food-based raw materials in a wide variety of applications, including in textiles, chemicals and plastics. The aim of the EU-funded CHBTECH project is to enhance the solution's technology maturity from TRL 7 to 9 and prepare the business for scale-up.
Objective
Wood-based biomass is one of the richest sources of bio-chemicals on Earth. Of the main constituents of wood – cellulose (40-50%), hemicellulose (20-30%) and lignin (20-30%) – mainly cellulose/pulp is utilised today. Rest of the biomass is disposed as waste. The main obstacle for wider use and further development of these hemicellulose and lignin is the lack of availability. Furthermore, current fractionation methods (based on Kraft process) use sulphur, which destroys the material properties of valuable bio-chemicals.
CH-Bioforce Oy has developed a sulphur-free biomass fractionation technology, which allows the extraction of all three wood-based biomass constituents in an economically sound way, with extremely high purity, and in industrial scale. Technology is flexible in size, and can utilize practically any kind of wood as raw material, e.g. birch, pine, spruce, eucalyptus, even wheat straw and bagasse. The process works well even with low quality wood, such as sawdust and logging residues, which are not suitable for commonly used pulping processes.
CH-Bioforce´s technology offers a renewable and cost-competitive option to replace fossil and food-based raw materials in a wide variety of applications, e.g in textiles, chemicals, and plastics. Company has conducted an intensive material testing and evaluation for dissolving pulp, polymeric hemicellulose and sulphur-free lignin produced by their pilot plants, and has already attracted several global corporations in energy, pulp&paper, and chemical industries. Business model for CH-Bioforce is to licence its technology to companies, who aim to produce and sell bio-based raw materials. Aim of this proposed project is to develop CH-Bioforce´s technology from current TRL-7 to TRL-9, to prepare the business scale up, and to convince the first customer to make the investment decision by the end of the project.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
02170 Espoo
Finland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.