Avantium awarded SPIRE grant to demonstrate a biorefinery concept based on its Dawn and Mekong technologies
Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF.
Avantium
N.V. has announced that it has been awarded 6 M€ as part of a SPIRE grant to accelerate its Dawn and
Mekong technologies in addition to utilizing its expertise in Catalysis.
Press release: “Avantium
awarded €6 million EU grant to accelerate its technologies”, 26/8/2019.
The construction of the Mekong Technology demonstration plant in Delfzijl is in full swing - the 17 meter distillation tower is now up and ready (27/8/2019)
A.SPIRE is the European Association which is
committed to manage and implement the SPIRE Public-Private Partnership (part of
Horizon 2020), the European programme for the developing of a sustainable process
industry. SPIRE brings together cement, ceramics, chemicals, engineering,
minerals and ores, non-ferrous metals, steel and water sectors.
Avantium will lead a 4-year research programme
entitled IMPRESS starting in September 2019. The IMPRESS project aims to
demonstrate a new biorefinery concept based on integrating two Avantium’s novel
processes:
- Dawn: converts non-food plant-based feedstock
into industrial sugars and lignin.
“Avantium
launches DAWN technology”, 11/7/2018.
- Mekong: transform the industrial sugars into
plant-based MEG.
“Chemie
Park Delfzijl will host the demonstration plant for Avantium’s Mekong
technology”, 28/3/2019.
New separation and purification methods will be
also developed.
The final objective is to create a value chain
starting from non-edible biomass to renewable chemicals and materials that
meets both economic and sustainability criteria.
In addition to Avantium, the IMPRESS consortium
consists of nine leading companies and knowledge institutes across Europe:
- Aalto University (Finland)
- IRCELYON (CNRS, Claude Bernard Lyon 1 university,
France)
- Knauer (Germany)
- Lenntech (Netherlands)
- PDC (Process Design Centre, Netherlands)
- South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
(Finland)
- Sulzer (Switzerland)
- Thinkstep (Germany)
- Vogelbusch Biocommodities (Austria)
The consortium has received a total SPIRE grant of 13
M€.