In essence, there are three ways to produce raw materials to manufacture our everyday consumables such as clothes and food packaging: 1) refining oil, 2) cultivating plants such as cotton and sources of starch, and 3) pulping and related technologies using wood as feedstock. None of these provide an optimal and sustainable way to produce our necessary commodities. Oil industry have a major negative impact to climate change. Farming land is used to cultivate crops as feedstock for materials when it should be used to feed the growing population. Pulping industry focuses only in the recovery of cellulose pulp and burns over half of the biomass (hemicellulose and lignin). Agricultural residues such as straw are a waste material that current technologies cannot utilize in a cost-efficient way. Today, both consumer demand and tightening regulations forces industries to find more sustainable ways to produce our daily consumables, however proper offerings are rare.
CH-Bioforce has developed a completely new way of processing lignocellulosic biomass. The breakthrough innovation extracts all three components of biomass - cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin - in one process. These high-quality biopolymers can be used as raw materials in e.g. packaging, textiles and chemical industries instead of oil- and food-based alternatives. We offer manufacturing industries a completely new, bio-based feedstock options, as to date no one else has been able to produce sulphur-free lignin and polymeric hemicellulose in one process in industrial scale, even though several attempts have taken place. In addition, our process can utilize agricultural and industrial side streams as feedstock, e.g. straw. Hence, we are able to produce e.g. textile grade pulp from straw and other agricultural residues. All in all, our innovation offers several industries a sustainable and economically viable alternative to fossil- and food-based feedstock options.
Aim of CHBTECH-project was to develop CH-Bioforce´s technology from current TRL-7 to TRL-9, to prepare the business scale up, and to convince the first licensing customer to make the investment decision by the end of the project.
Conclusions: Our technology enables economically viable production of completely new, high-quality biopolymers – dissolving pulp, polymeric hemicellulose and sulphur-free lignin – for the growing market demand for bio-based materials. Our technology utilizes effectively almost any kind of lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock; wood, but also non-wood such as industrial and agricultural side streams. We provide a truly unique solution for circular economy.
