SPIRE 2 – 2014: Adaptable industrial processes allowing the use of renewables as flexible feedstock for chemical and energy applications - Matchmaking – Brussels 31/01/2014

Update 140113

1 Project name (tbc).

Move to biomass, “Move2bio”; Biomass in operations, “Biomops”; “Ursula”;…

2 Scientific/technological challenges that the project will address.

The valorization of biomass for different applications such as energy, by-products and intermediates for chemical production is a key factor for the development of bio-based products which leads to preserving natural resources and contributing to the green economic growth.

However, one of the major barriers for the deployment of infrastructure for biomass valorization is that many biomass sources are available seasonally, locally and are subject to fluctuation which causes several challenges in terms of full time large scale plant operation and makes the whole business model questionable.

Being operational “where the biomass is”, the below described technologies will also contribute to revigorate the local economical development in remote areas across Europe (societal challenge).

3 Project Objectives

The proposed project aims at solving the above mentioned challenge by developing integrated-technologies in a containerized and portable way for the valorization of different sources of biomass such as compost, energy crops, hay, grass, manure, straw, prunnings, round logs, saw dust, wood chips, algae, sludge etc targeting several applications such as Energy, animal feed, fertilizer, animal bedding, gardening, biofuels, building materials, biopolymers and bio-aromatics

The consortium is aiming to respond to the above mentionned SPIRE 2 call. Use of biomass, residues and waste gases as feedstock/raw materials in industry to produce green chemical building blocks and energy is expected to increase significantly in the coming years. This will play a vital role in the establishment of a more sustainable and low carbon industry. However, the increased use of biomass, residues and waste gases as feedstock/raw materials in industry poses a number of challenges that need to be addressed, such as seasonal and fragmented availability, short harvesting windows, environmental challenges, variable availability and/or quality of supply, and presumed competition with animal or human food supply. In addition, it is important to develop highly efficient equipment using novel techniques and evaluate the use of biomass and residues as feedstock for co-firing in industrial processes to detect potential operational problems (logistic).

Changing markets and making new links in the value chains will be an added challenge in the future production systems based on cross sectorial integration. These challenges have to be overcome in order to allow increased utilisation of biomass residues and waste gases in the industry.New approaches have demonstrated that small mobile and flexible units with chemical processing and process intensification capabilities could provide several advantages in comparison to fixed facilities, such as operation in a distributed manner and mobility to different locations providing higher flexibility.

4 Current partnership

The current Consortium is formed by several SMEs and initiated by Tuzetka (a Belgian SME) who has developed and demonstrated Micromilling and Pellets production technologies in situ with an appropriate readiness level

a) Nettenergy (SME) produces renewable energy and material on the basis of plant biomass.We specialize in:- Developing the innovative 2nd generation flash pyrolysis technology PyroFlash- Producing high quality pyrolysis oil (3% water content, HHV 24 MJ/kg)

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Nettenergy focuses on local markets in which the raw material (wood, grass, crop residues) for the pyrolysis process are already present. Nettenergy enables owners of this resource (municipalities, forest managers, farmers)  to generate electricity and heat. Nettenergy introduces a unique concept: the mobile pyrolysis plant PyroFlash.

b) Tuzetka-2ZK (SME) supplies equipment (the micromill) and know how to process large quantities of biomass such as wood, agro waste and herbaceous biofuels. After processing, the biomass is sold for various bio-based purposes: energy, biopolymers, animal bedding, etc. The production can be exported or used locally. The technology developed is allowing a large biobased product-market range. Tuzetka provides communities and local district authorities with the logistics and technical infrastructure to move away from the use of fossil fuels for their energy needs, initially concentrating on communal district heating i.e. by implementing a “bioenergy trade centre”.

d) True Energy has developped a containerized gazifier able to convert local biomass into valuable energy carrier. The highly innovative gasification technology that has specific applications in the thermal-chemical gasification of different kinds of biomass or other carbonaceous feedstock.

The technology is based on a new gasifier design concept: Top Reduction Updraft Gasification. Our TRUTM technology has the following advantages:-very efficient gasification of all carbon, resulting in ultra low particulate emissions and virtually no soot-advanced reactor design and reaction kinetics, with no dioxin & furans and extremely low NOx emissions-very small physical footprint, specifically a significant reduction in gasifier height-very broad feedstock spectrum with very high moisture content such as Municipal Solid Waste and fresh agricultural and horticultural waste-automated operation ideal for distributed deployment in remote areas.Among the objectives, the conversion of local syngaz into bioDME and others related by products (typically methanol and N2).

e) Regions of Europe (tbc): 5 to 6 biomass sourcing areas across Europe.Lorraine, Phalsbourg (FR), Liguria (IT), Castilla & Leon (ES), Ivano Frankivsk (Ukraine), Bosnia,…What is the feedstock availability, what, who are the competitors? Price to mobilize the biomass? Socio economics impact?Objectives: to skill the local energy agency (as example) and staff for promoting sustainable biomass use for energy and other semi finished products.The biomass activities will be managed under the umbrella of a “Bioenergy Trade Centre” (i.e. with contribution of others renewable energy sources or energ storage). Each “sourcing” partner would have the duty to disseminate the knowledge to others regional partners.The idea is also to trigger the investments near funding surces like FEDER or the European Investment Bank (or EBD for Cenral Europe) what means the necessity to aggregate several projects.

A GIS system is already developed by the CIEMAT: Bioraise (http://bioraise.ciemat.es/bioraise/)

f) Industries:- SITA: Member o the French Group Suez Environment, SITA is developping the concept of waste as raw maerial for the biobased economy.- others…

5 Innovativeness with respect to the state of the art.

The Micromill is a fully portable densification equipment able to process 3tons of biomass per hour. The equipment is equipped with shredding, drying, milling and pelletizing devices able to process where the biomass is. The output is a the dried biomass in powder, pellets, briquettes. The particle size of the material can range from 80 microns up to 3-5mm. The micromill is hydraulic powershifting with a main thermal motor fuelled with disel, biodiesel. Pyrolisis oil is an adhoc fully renewable fuel.

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The Pyroflash is fully autonomous equipment able to pyrolize various kind of biomass (wood, miscanthus) ideally under the pellet format. Among the outputs, the pyrolisis oil and/or the syngaz are two primary fuels usable by the micromill. Additional products based on “wood acid” are useful for bio-aromatics purpose.

The True Energy containerized gazifier will deliver additional energy carrier suitable for energy purpose either in very close locations of the biomass feedstock (upsream) either at the gate of the customers (downstream).

The combined equipments in operation will be able to mobilize various kind of untapped raw material available in remote areas. The concept is highly replicable by adding more units and in his respect is unique on the market.

6 Describe partners sought.

The consortium is seeking partners from the chemical sector who have developed chemical processes and process intensifications for the valorization of biomass, or end users of the expected by-products. The consortium is seeking also other members of the SPIRE community who can use the generated by-products (e.g. pellets for energy production, etc) or who could provide (>use) valuable biomass feedstock in order to extend the product-market range.

The consortium is expected to closely work with existing R&D project: - OPTIMA is developping the potential of high yielding grasses in Mediterranan aras.- Grass Margin is study the potential for using different types of grass species under

challenging climatic conditions (e.g. drought, salinity, flood and cold) to develop high yielding biofuel crops.

- OPTIMISC is to optimize the miscanthus bioenergy and bioproduct chain.

7 Budget.

6-10 millions€: lower threshold is targeted i.e. 5-7Mios€.

See extensive call below under 8

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Pathways for biomass mobilization.

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Biomassmobilizing and densification pathways

All biomas: Solid densification in

situ 2ZK, portable

micromill

Pellets, powder: solid raw material ready for

the markets

Energy (heat):

industries, district heating

Farming: bedding, feeding

semi finished raw

material

building industry biopolymers packaging

Fuel-chemical

sector (biofuels2G)

Pyrolisis in situ: Nettenergy, PyroFlash

primary fuel: syngaz and pi-oil (30%)

bio-transport &

power: electric loading

stations, marine fuel

bio-aromatics

(30%)

chemical sector

biochar (30%)

bio heat & organic farming

True Energy: moistened

biomass >60%

Syngaz

DME - transport

Stationnary plants: biogaz, pellet plants,..

8 Call (extensive version).

SPIRE 2 – 2014: Adaptable industrial processes allowing the use of renewables as flexible feedstock for chemical and energy applications

Specific challenge: Use of biomass, residues and waste gases as feedstock/raw materials in industry to produce green chemical building blocks and energy is expected to increase significantly in the coming years. This will play a vital role in the establishment of a more sustainable and low carbon industry. However, the increased use of biomass, residues and waste gases as feedstock/raw materials in industry poses a number of challenges that need to be addressed, such as seasonal and fragmented availability, short harvesting windows, environmental challenges, variable availability and/or quality of supply, and presumed competition with animal or human food supply. In addition, it is important to develop highly efficient equipment using novel techniques and evaluate the use of biomass and residues as feedstock for co-firing in industrial processes to detect potential operational problems. Changing markets and making new links in the value chains will be an added challenge in the future production systems based on cross sectorial integration. These challenges have to be overcome in order to allow increased utilisation of biomass residues and waste gases in the industry. New approaches have demonstrated that small mobile and flexible units with chemical processing and process intensification capabilities could provide several advantages in comparison to fixed facilities, such as operation in a distributed manner and mobility to different locations providing higher flexibility. This could provide convenient business opportunities especially for processes presenting a variable feed supply, fragmented feedstock availability and/or need for mobility to different locations to maximise usage time.

Scope: Projects should develop new processes or improved valorisation approaches that would provide efficient biomass, residue and waste gas conversion (or biomass pre-treatment for further refining) while developing a fully integrated system and the associated equipment for downstream use. These processes should allow an increased utilisation of renewables (where economically and technically favourable relative to other potential applications) as feedstock for the production of chemicals (including intermediates) and/or fuels as part of an integrated approach to optimise resource and energy efficiency. Such processes should be presented with a containerised, flexible and scalable approach allowing for (pre-) processing of biomass, residues and waste gases at locations closer to the supply. The proposed solutions should be able to cope with the seasonal or even daily fluctuations of the renewable source to be used. In this respect the unit should also be able to process feedstock from different sources in order to guarantee the level of supply.

The proposed solutions should provide economically viable alternatives to current practice in biomass processing and demonstrate business feasibility. Moreover, new innovative technologies and approaches are expected to substitute the current fossil fuels by renewables as feedstock. LCA and LCC analysis for the proposed processes is needed in order to prove the sustainability of the solutions. It is desirable to develop and demonstrate a multi-sectorial and replicable methodology for increasing the renewable resources integration in industrial processing. It is expected that high amounts of biomass, residues and waste gases will be further used in energy intensive industries, enhancing the efficiency in the use of these resources. Substantial demonstration activities in conjunction with the development of solution-adapted equipment are expected.

For this topic, proposals should include an outline of the initial exploitation and business plans. Wherever possible, proposers could actively seek synergies, including possibilities for cumulative

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funding, with relevant national / regional research and innovation programmes and/or European Structural and Investment Funds in connection with smart specialisation strategies. Exploitation plans, outline financial arrangements and any follow-up should be developed during the project. Activities expected to focus on Technology Readiness Level 5-71. A significant participation of SMEs with R&D capacities is encouraged.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 6 and 10 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact: - Economically viable solutions and technologies allowing a reduction in fossil resources

intensity of at least 30%, compared to current practices (for already optimal processes the savings could also come from reduction in fossil energy for feedstock transportation). It should lead to increased utilisation of renewables in the industry as feedstock for the production of chemicals (and/or intermediates) and/or fuels as part of an integrated approach to optimise energy efficiency with a proven sustainability, taking into account environmental issues and competition with food. In addition, the solutions are expected to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

- The technologies developed should integrate well in the current industrial landscape providing finished products and/or intermediate and building blocks that could be processed in already existing industries.

- They could also show a direct or indirect impact on rural areas, arising from the increased use of biomass and residues production locally.

Type of action: Innovation Actions

1 Technology demonstration level

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