Profile: FLEXIBI – Decision support for small-scale flexi-feed biorefineries
Type of post: PROJECT PROFILE.
At the beginning of 2017, FACCE
SURPLUS launched a joint call for transnational research projects focused on
the small-scale biorefinery concepts and their potential role in enhancing
the sustainability and productivity of EU agriculture, as well as their scope
to benefit the rural economy. Just before the end of that year, eight
projects were selected to receive funding under the framework of the call. The
project FLEXIBI, aimed at designing e decision support tool assessing the
different pathway for the establishment of small-scale biorefinery by
evaluating all parameters accounting for the more sustainable solution, was one
of them.
Figure 1. FLEXIBI – Decision
support for small-scale flexi-feed biorefineries
Key data
Title
|
FLEXIBI (Decision
Support for Small-scale Flexi-feed Biorefineries)
|
Consortium
|
The FLEXIBI consortium consists of six partners, located in four European
countries: France, Germany, Finland and Belgium. These countries present a
large diversity of context that can offer contrasted biomass availability,
local economic systems and opportunities for case study implementations.
- Groupe Ecole Supérieure du Bois
(France).
- Hamburg University of
Technology, TUHH (Germany).
- National Institut
for Agronomic Research, INRA (France). Coordinator.
- University
of Hamburg, UHH (Germany).
- University
of Helsinki (Finland).
- University of Leuven (Belgium).
|
Duration
|
May 2018 – May 2021
|
Challenges
Urban or peri-urban agricultural,
agro-industrial and city activities generate sources of biomass wastes still
underexploited. One way to use this biomass in sustainable way is to implement
of Small-scale Flexible Biorefineries (SFBs). They have to answer critical
challenges to present benefits compare to large scale solutions:
- Adaptation of processes
for mixtures of wastes with variable composition. Compositional changes
affect the efficiency of the biorefining process and the yield of bioproducts
produced. Optimization and adaptation of multi-feed processes to local
feedstock supply are of prime importance to develop an efficient process.
- Improvement of
sustainability. Large-scale systems may have higher yields and thus can be
cheaper per amount of product but require more capital-intensive processing.
Economic sustainability of the SFB has to be secured by appropriate and simple
technologies to yield products that can be use in specific and high value
applications.
- Integration of SFBs in
local socio-economical context. Small-scale biorefining involves
integration of the whole production chains from the biomass producers to
biorefinery operators and end-users to create short, local and optimized
transformation chains.
Approaches
FLEXIBI proposes an integrated
multidisciplinary strategy combining experimental and modelling approaches to
build unique decision support tool to define the best biorefining pathway for
multi-biomass feedstocks waste from urban and peri-urban areas.
- Quantitative process
modelling. This part of the project will model the material balances on the
basis of experimental assessments, for different types of processed biomass
using various biorefinery pathways.
- Knowledge engineering.
The relation with different players that are relevant for implementation of
SFBs will be represented and modelled based on knowledge from a multitude of
stakeholder groups. To achieve this, an expert panel and a European advisory
board will be set-up to support the project progress. Complementary interviews
with regional stakeholders will be carried out and project results transferred
to them.
- Experimental assessment.
Three representative “pilot feedstocks” from different urban and peri-urban
waste origins and their mixtures will be investigated using selected
biorefinery pathways for the transformation into different product categories in
order to gain systematic data sets for modelling.
Pilot zones
Three contrasted experiment
zones have been selected for real case studies: Nantes, Hamburg and Leuven. Experimental
data from biorefinery assays and expert knowledge collection will feed
quantitative process modelling and knowledge engineering approaches to set-up
decision support tools and value-creation oriented schemes for under-valorized
biomass. These will be used to provide support for SFB design for specific
regional/local level configurations.
Expected result
A new knowledge and a
decision-making support tool enabling the:
- Evaluation of the
technological, economic and environmental suitability of different types and
mixtures of plant biomass to be processed by different biorefinery processes.
- Valorisation of currently
underexploited waste.
- Development of innovative biobased materials from
local waste resources.
