Partnership headed by CENER unveils biorefinery concept developed for Navarre

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Navarre (North of Spain) possesses a solid infrastructure of technological centers and companies carrying out projects in the fields of agriculture, renewable energies and industrial biotechnologies. This is why a technological partnership worked during 2014 and 2015 to shape a biorefinery concept that integrates the knowledge gained in the past by its members to achieve the maximum exploitation of the autochthonous herbaceous biomass in an efficient and sustainable way.

Summary chart of the main characteristics of the project:
Biorefinery in Navarre
Main objective: Development of the preliminary project of a biorefinery located in Navarre.
Leader: CENER.
Partners: AIN, CNTA, INTIA and UPNA.
Workpackages:
·         WP1. Feedstocks.
·         WP2. Conversion processes.
·         WP3. Biorefinery concept design.
Funding: Government of Navarre (50% co-financed by European Union FEDER funds).
Implementation period: 2014 – 2015.

Within this framework, a conference took place on 10th February in ADItech headquarters in order to disseminate the results achieved to the professionals of the sectors related to the project subject. Moreover, a participatory session was organized with round tables to analyze three key topics in the biorefinery design and identify the interested industrial partners.

Figure 1. General view of the biochemical module of the Second Generation Biofuel Centre of CENER (extracted from CENER web page)

During the dissemination session, an advanced assessment of the herbaceous biomass availability in Navarra from crops (straw of different cereals, cauliflower and broccoli residues, alfalfa, triticale and sorghum) and agroalimentary industries wastes (tomato, sweet corn, cruciferous, pepper, cardoon and artichoke) was presented. Such assessment considered the quantity, the seasonality and the location of the feedstocks. With this data, an optimization study was carried out taking into account economic, logistics and environmental aspects, and using a GIS-based tool.

In this same session, the main characteristics of the concept of advanced biorefinery developed in the project were described. The following table shows a summary of those ones.

Table 1. Biorefinery concept
Feedstocks
Cereal straw and tomato waste.
Products
Ethanol (18.500 ton/year), furfural (14.000 ton/year) and lycopene (3.850 kg/year, 8% purity).
Technologies
1. Ethanol-furfural production process:
- Pretreatment and acid hydrolysis of the lignocellulosic feedstock: solid fraction (cellulose) and liquid fraction (hemicellulose).
- The solid fraction is subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis to break the cellulose bonds into glucanes subsequently fermented to ethanol.
- The liquid fraction is transformed intro furfural by a catalytic dehydration process.
2. Extraction process of lycopene from tomato waste.

Along with the definition of the concept, economic feasibility data from the preliminary project (investment, business plan, scenarios and markets) were provided. The total budget for the facility would rise to 80 M€.

The start-up of a plant with these characteristics could suppose a strong economic and social boost for the surrounding rural areas. Additionaly, Navarre would place a strategic position in the incipient biorefining sector in Spain. The blog will follow with interest the following advances of the project. I hope the biorefinery shall find the support and the industrial partners to become a reality in a near future.

NOTE: I would like to thank the staff of the project in CENER for providing the technical information required to prepare this post.

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