Profile: FLEXIBI – Decision support for small-scale flexi-feed biorefineries

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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.

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