BBI JU awards PEFerence project with 25 M€ for establishing a complete FDCA value chain

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I came across this news while I was working in a new post of the series about biobased chemical building blocks. It is devoted to FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid) biorefineries and I hope it will be released next week. Before, I advance this announcement that Synvina published yesterday (see press release). BBI JU have granted 25 M€ to PEFerence, a consortium of eleven companies, for supporting the establishment of an innovative value chain for the use of FDCA as precursor of PEF (polyethylenefuranoate).

Figure 1. PEF bottle (extracted from Avantium web page)

The challenge lies in establishing at industrial scale (TRL 8) first-of-a-kind, cost-effective biorefinery that converts biomass into FDCA and addressing its further conversion into biomaterials for identified applications. The grant includes the construction of the 50 kton FDCA reference plant of Synvina. For those readers who do not know, Avantium and BASF announced last October the formation of a new joint venture called Synvina for the production and marketing of FDCA produced from renewable resources (see blog post). It was conceived with the aim of building a first plant at BASF’s Verbund site in Antwerp (Belgium).

Of course, Synvina will be coordinating the PEFerence project. The consortium covers from raw material producer to brand owner. Besides Synvina and its shareholders Avantium and BASF, the partners are:
- Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co Kg (Austria)
- Croda Nederland B.V. (The Netherlands)
- Lego System As (Denmark)
- Nestec Sa (Switzerland)
- Nova-Institut für politische und ökologische Innovation GmbH (Germany)
- OMV Machinery Srl (Italy)
- Spinverse Innovation Management Oy (Finland)
- Tereos Participations (France)

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