BIOGREEN Project – Laying the foundations for the first green biorefinery in Spain
Updated: 02/02/2017.
The green biorefinery model is based on the use
of fresh wet biomass (green biomass) as feedstock. Examples of green biomass
are grass growing in pastureland and crops like alfalfa and clover. This kind
of biomass has become a surplus raw material in many European regions due to
the restructuring of the farm sector. Thus, serious industrial efforts have
been carried out to valorize it through innovating and integral approaches like
the green biorefinery model. Such efforts have concentrated in Northern regions
(mainly, Germany and Austria). If you want to know more about the green
biorefinery model and examples of operating facilities, you can read this post:
Biorefinery
models - Green biorefinery.
And it appeared that this concept also wants to
carve out a place in Spain. A partnership of Andalusian and Galician companies,
with the cooperation of AINIA and CETIM, has started to work in a project aimed
to develop a green biorefinery concept that allows to obtain energy and high
value products in agroindustrial environments from non-food and high
performance crops. It is the BIOGREEN project that arises with the intention of
boosting the bioeconomy concept and the development of traditionally
agricultural areas to transform them in competitive zones.
The partnership will try to find a sustainable
way for lands non used in crop production and to develop bioproducts of easy
integration in local markets of rural areas. During the project, a pilot plant and
an existing facilities (see the information at the end of the post) will lay
the foundations for the first reference of a green biorefinery in Spain.
Figure 1. Biogas plant of Norvento in Lugo (courtesy of
Norvento). It will house the tests to validate the results obtained in the pilot
plant.
Key information
Title
|
BIOGREEN
(Innovating technological solutions to develop a biorefinery model from green
biomass)
|
Call
|
Project
funded by CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) through
the FEDER INNTERCONECTA program. It is assisted by the Ministry of Economy
and Competitivity and cofunded by the European Regional Development Fund
(ERDF).
|
Biorefinery model
|
Green
biorefinery based on the circular economy concept.
Feedstock:
green biomass, non-food and high performance crops.
Primary fractionation:
pressing to obtain two main streams (green juice and lignocellulosic cake).
Valorization
pathway and products of the juice:
- First
stage of the anaerobic digestion (hydrolytic): obtaining of volatile fatty
acids (VFAs). PHAs are producing from them by fermentative process.
- Second stage
of the anaerobic digestion (methanogenic): obtaining of biogas and digestate. The
latter is the platform for the fertilizers production.
Valorization
pathway and products of the cake: manufacturing of fibre products (cellulose
acetate).
|
Budget
|
Total: 1.182.800 € / Funding: 679.179,90 €.
|
Duration
|
2.5 years
(ending by 31th December, 2018)
|
Coordinator
|
Norvento (bussiness group of the renewable energies
sector, Galicia): anerobic digestion process.
|
Partnership
|
Agroamb (innovating PyME, Galicia): validation of
the fractionation system for the feedstock and production of the fertilizers
from the digestate.
BIOT (technology-based company, Andalusia): design,
engineering and operation of bioreactors for the production of biopolymers.
Idener (PyME, Andalusia): extraction of biopolymers
and integration and simulation of the process at larger scales.
Galchimia (PYME, Galicia): development and validation
of the biomass processing for the synthesis of cellulose acetate.
CETIM (technological centre, Galicia): cooperation
in the activities of Galchimia.
AINIA (technological centre, Valencian Community): cooperation in the
activities related to the biomass characterization, process of anaerobic
digestion, biopolymers production and digestate valorization as fertilizer.
|
Figure 2. Green biorefinery model to be developed
in the BIOGREEN project (courtesy of Norvento)
Specific activities
- Characterization and fractionation of the biomass for the production of the cake and the juice.
- Laboratory and pilot studies of the anaerobic digestion in two stages.
- Development of the process for the production of cellulose acetate.
- Production and extraction of biopolymers.
- Tests to evaluate the suitability of the digestate as fertilizer, first in the lab and subsequently in rural zones.
- Study at commercial scale of the second stage of the anaerobic digestion with possibility of co-digestion with other local wastes to maximize the biogas production.
Existing and pilot
facilities
The construction, assembly and operation of a hydrolytic
reactor at pilot scale (the size will be defined according to the laboratory
results) is expected. It will be coupled to another existing 2 m3
reactor to achieve the separation in two stages of the anaerobic digestion.
After mounted, the facility will be operated with green juice streams from the
initial phases of the project with the purpose of optimizing the hydraulic and
operational parameters. There, the generation of biogas and the extraction
of VFAs will be optimized. PHAs production by aerobic fermentation (enrichment
and accumulation) from VFAs will be carried out in the facilities of BIOT that
will build specific pilot reactors for this purpose.
Acknowledgements: I would like to express my appreciation to Iago Jove (Technician in the Biomass Area at Norvento) for his kind collaboration.
