Avantium awarded SPIRE grant to demonstrate a biorefinery concept based on its Dawn and Mekong technologies

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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€.

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