Scion receives funding to develop a bark biorefinery concept



Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Endeavour Fund Investment Plan is a program of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment of New Zealand that invests in research projects that aim to improve the lives of the New Zealanders by enhancing the economy, the environment and the society. In the last edition, a total of 249.1 million NZD has been awarded to 69 new research projects (see press release). The “Bark Biorefinery” of Scion is one of them. This organisation is a Crown Research Institute (CRI), a government-owned company that carries out scientific research for the benefit of New Zealand. It is specialised in research, science and technology development for the forestry, wood and wood-derived materials and other biomaterial sectors.

Figure 1. Scion will develop a bark biorefinery concept

The full title of the project is “Bark Biorefinery: Unlocking new hydrophobic polymers”, it will last 5 years and have a contract value of 9.98 million NZD. It seeks to develop a bark biorefinery concept and new value chains linking bark processing to the extraction and supply of novel products, opening new export opportunities for global specialty chemicals and associated products.

By using the latest in green chemistry approaches, Scion pretends to release the untapped potential for pine bark derived compounds in current and new applications. It is expected to extract and fractionate significant quantities of the suberin (hydrophobic biopolymer with waterproofing properties) together with high value monomeric compounds and targeted molecular weight fractions of polyphenolic tannins as by-products. In addition, the residual bark left after extraction will be converted to renewable solid fuels, allowing the integrated biorefinery to approach energy neutrality.

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