FIRST2RUN Project – From cardoon to biobased products

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FIRST2RUN is the name of one of the three demonstration projects that won funding from the BBI JU 2014 call. Since the project is aimed at demonstrating an integrated biorefinery, the blog will be following its advances with interest. The first data of the proposal were compiled in a previous post which summarized the information available in CORDIS about the projects granted in the call (BBI JU 2014 call – Granted Projects). Novamont (coordinator) has just unveiled the official web page of the project. It is for that reason that now, we can deepen a little bit more in the scope and objectives of the project.

FIRST2RUN will demonstrate (TRL8: system complete and qualified) the techno, economic and environmental sustainability at industrial scale of a value chain where underutilized oil crops are exploited for the extraction of vegetable oils to be further converted through chemical and biotechnological processes into biomonomers and esters that will be applied in the formulation of bioproducts.

The cardoon will be the oil crop to be studied. The demonstration of the agricultural and industrial sustainability of its large scale cultivation in identified marginal lands will be carried out in the first stage of the project. Taking this feedstock as reference, sustainable, cost-effective and innovative catalytic and biocatalytic processes for the production of biobased building blocks from high oleic oils (mainly, pelargonic and azelaic acids) will be developed and optimized at medium scale. Then, the system will be scaled in order to reach a large scale production of building blocks (20,000 ton/year), biodegradable oils (10,000 ton/year) and compounded biopolyesters (50,000 ton/year). The formulation of the biobased building blocks will be validated thanks to their transformation into biobased products. Azelaic acid is a basic constituent of renewable and/or compostable plastics, in addition to having important applications in the synthesis of complex esters used in the lubricants sector. Pelargonic acid is used as an intermediate in the synthesis of biolubricants and emollients for the cosmetics sector, but it is also an important raw material for the production of bleaching agents, food fragrances and herbicides.

Figure 1. Azelaic acid and pelargonic acid (extracted from Matrìca web page)

By and co-products from the process will be valorised for energy, feed for animals and added value chemicals in order to increase the sustainability of the value chain. The side-streams compounds that can be recovered and exploited include lignocellulosic residues deriving from the cardoon crop, by-products from the extraction process of oils from seeds, as well as the glycerol produced during the oxidative cleavage of the high oleic oil.

The project started on 7th July and it will have a duration of 48 months. The consortium is formed by six partners from four different countries:

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