Project description
Biomass pellets are rolling along thanks to an innovative mobile processing unit
Biomass is proving extremely beneficial in tipping the balance away from combustion of fossil fuels for the production of low-carbon energy. However, a tremendous volume of woody biomass that could be turned into pellets is currently wasted as its valorisation still relies on centralised processing. This means its collection and transportation by producers of small quantities is expensive and the cost of obtaining land and permits to create centralised processing units can be prohibitive. The EU-funded Proxipel project has developed a mobile pelletising unit that can process a variety of biomass types, including wet biomass, on-site where the biomass is generated. It promises to recover biomass that would otherwise be wasted while reducing the environmental impacts associated with biomass transformation.
Objective
The biopellet market is booming in Europe, and the production of wood pellets (main commercial product) has increased from 6-7 to 26 Mton/year in the period 2006-2015, and is expected to rise to 38 Mton/year in 2025, due to the general interest in substituting fossil fuel with CO2 neutral biomass. There is a need of solutions to utilise the potential of biomass residues currently available in forests, agriculture, agroindustry and parks, not being used today as it is too expensive to handle and process the feedstock. Our innovative solution consists in a mobile pelletizing unit, placed on a trailer that can be connected to a normal truck for transportation. This eliminates associated costs with buying land and obtaining building and permissions. The raw material is crushed, milled, dried, and pressed to biopellets. Our solution can handle a large variety of raw material, like straw, nut shell, rice husk, etc., although the main raw material is expected to be wooden residues. Only one operator is required, and the unit can produce up to 1.2 ton/h with a low energy consumption. Our first sales is expected to be in Switzerland and in France. By 2026, it is expected to have sold more than 400 units.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels
- agricultural sciences agricultural biotechnology biomass
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries forestry
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
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H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1261 VAUD
Switzerland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.