BIONEER
SCALED-UP PRODUCTION OF NEXT-GENERATION CARBOHYDRATE-DERIVED BUILDING BLOCKS TO ENHANCE THE COMPETITIVENESS OF A SUSTAINABLE EUROPEAN CHEMICALS INDUSTRY
Project details
- Type of project
- Innovation Action - Demonstration
- Project focus
- Bio-based chemicals
- Feedstock origin
- Agri-food wasteForestry waste
- Feedstock type
- Lignin & wood residues
- Project period
- 1 June 2024 - 31 May 2028
- Status
- In progress
- CBE JU Contribution
- € 7 499 999,85
- Call identifier
- HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023
Summary
As the fourth largest industry in the EU, the chemical sector is a crucial contributor to the European economy. However, it relies heavily on fossil fuels, and the limited number of existing bio-based platform chemicals are derived from sugar, starch, and oil crops, which also have a high environmental impact and deviate resources from food production. Currently however, fossil-derived chemicals have a wider range of functionalities when compared to the current bio-based chemicals.
BIONEER is changing the landscape of the chemical industry by using low-cost, sustainably sourced, lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock to produce novel platform chemicals, such as liquid compounds used in the personal care and coatings sectors. It aims to widen the range of bio-based building blocks and platform molecules by demonstrating the scaled-up synthesis of a range of novel molecules and polymers from lignocellulosic biomass.
With this, BIONEER building blocks made from sustainably sourced biomass will replace toxic and less environmentally friendly fossil-based building blocks, mainly bisphenol A and its derivates.
BIONEER aims to demonstrate and advance the potential of lignocellulosic biomass carbohydrate-derived components to replace fossil-based functional building blocks and establish their path to market with the application in several sectors. To achieve this, BIONEER aims to:
- Use sustainable feedstock with reduced import dependency and scaled-up processing of lignocellulosic biomass for highly efficient and eco-friendly extraction of polymers and sugars as base compounds for microbial, biochemical, and chemical conversions.
- Following the European Commission’s safe-and-sustainable-by-design ‘framework, optimise and scale up novel production routes of building blocks from the base compounds via novel enzymatic and chemical catalysis routes.
- Test and validate the BIONEER building blocks and process residues in three large industrial sectors: personal care, coatings, and packaging.
- Ensure safety, compliance with relevant regulations, and sustainability of the BIONEER production routes and products by using the safe-and-sustainable-by-design framework as a guidance tool in the process and product design.
- Provide a roadmap for including the BIONEER platform chemicals into an established fossil-based market.
With the use of lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock, BIONEER aims to:
- Promote breakthrough advances in the chemical sector to produce innovative, safe, and sustainable bio-based building blocks on a demo scale.
- Increase the opportunities for market penetration of bio-based chemicals, with a promising business case generating €14.95 million per year in revenue; the business case for UV curing coatings generating a five-year cumulative earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation of €36.6 million.
- Promote job creation in the long term with more than 300 direct and close to 1,000 indirect jobs.
- Improve environmental performance with the reduction of greenhouse gases.
- Replace toxic compounds, such as bisphenol A, or non-biodegradable compounds like siloxanes, acrylates and PVP.
- Increase market acceptance of bio-based products.
By accomplishing these objectives, BIONEER will disrupt the chemical industry sector and bring positive impacts to the scientific, technological, economic, and societal sectors.
Consortium map
Project coordination
- SINTEF AS Trondheim, Norway
Consortium
- POLITECHNIKA POZNANSKA POZNAN, Poland
- LUNDS UNIVERSITET Lund, Sweden
- REMMERS INDUSTRIELACKE GMBH Hiddenhausen, Germany
- AIO TECH OU TALLINN, Estonia
- METGEN OY Kaarina, Finland
- TETRA PAK PROCESSING SYSTEMS AKTIEBOLAG LUND, Sweden
- HELIOS TOVARNA BARV, LAKOV IN UMETNIH SMOL KOLICEVO DOO Domzale, Slovenia
- UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK Limerick, Ireland
- CIAOTECH Srl Roma, Italy
- EVONIK OPERATIONS GMBH Essen, Germany
- CELIGNIS LIMITED Limerick, Ireland
- CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOGSKOLA AB GOTEBORG, Sweden
