NEXT-STEP

NEXT-GEN OF SUSTAINABLE BIOBASED CHEMICAL PLATFORMS AND POLYMERS: ENHANCING SUSTAINABILITY IN EUROPEAN INDUSTRY

Project details

Type of project: Innovation Action - Demonstration
Project focus: Bio-based chemicals
Feedstock origin: Forestry waste
Feedstock type: Lignin & wood residues

Project period: 1 June 2024 - 31 May 2028
Status: Completed
CBE JU Contribution: € 6 609 475,5
Call identifier: HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023

Summary

Scaling up sustainable and biodegradable materials is crucial for the future advancement of European industry. Currently, many bio-based alternatives struggle to compete with established fossil-based chemicals due to challenges in environmental, economic, and societal performance. To overcome this, NEXT-STEP aims to build on the H2020 BioCatPolymers project to scale up and demonstrate a sustainable, safe, and economically viable production process for a new chemical platform with large-scale applications, notably in the bio-based polymer market.

By reducing manufacturing costs and using second-generation feedstocks such as hardwood sugars produced from sustainably managed forests, NEXT-STEP aims to develop a new chemical platform, the 3-methyl-d-valerolactone (3MdVL) that will improve the sustainability and recyclability of polyurethane (PU) products and unlock new engineering plastic applications for polylactic acid (PLA) co-polymers. This initiative seeks to address environmental concerns while fostering the adoption of bio-based materials in various industries.

The NEXT-STEP project addresses the pressing need for sustainable and biodegradable materials in European industry, by:

Optimising the sourcing and process of EU-based and sustainable feedstocks.
Scaling up and demonstrating an innovative and resource-efficient process for producing an MVL (Mevalonate).
Scaling up resource-efficient catalytic processes to unlock the use of 3MdVL as a bio-based platform chemical.
Commercialising viable, safe, and sustainable building blocks by design to allow for future market adoption, while also ensuring the techno-economic feasibility of the developed processes.
Demonstrating the applicability of 3MdVL as a bio-based chemical platform for producing bio-based products that meet market requirements.
Defining socially acceptable and competitive business and commercialisation plans for the exploitation of project results.

NEXT-STEP’s main target is to demonstrate and scale up a sustainable, resource- and energy-efficient route to produce 3MdVL, which is currently not commercially available at a large scale. Expected impacts include:

Reducing dependency on biomass feedstock imports and land use impact, with positive effects on feedstock sustainability across the value chain.
Improving circularity and resource efficiency via the practical application of the circular (bio)economy concept, encompassing the resource- and energy-efficient cascading use of sustainably sourced biomass.
Significantly improving sustainability, strategic autonomy, resilience, and competitiveness of the European chemical industry, while also reducing the fossil feedstock dependence on other downstream sectors.
Significantly improving environmental performance across the value chain against specified fossil and/or bio-based benchmarks.
Reducing direct and indirect emissions against available fossil-based and/or bio-based benchmarks of the chemical industry, with a clear technical pathway to carbon neutrality.
Increasing social acceptance of circular bio-based solutions and products.
Making available a broader range of bio-based chemicals that meet market requirements and facilitating the market uptake of scalable bio-based solutions, therefore improving the present market penetration and impact of the bio-based chemicals.
Increasing the resilience of EU manufacturers through the production of sustainably managed feedstock inside the EU. As they are 2G feedstocks, from already-used products, the land use impact is minimal.
Making the processing sustainable by design, ensuring the use of renewable energies as much as possible. More notably, polyurethane can be obtained without using isocyanate and through a recycling-enabling copolymer.
Producing, for the first time, flexible PLA and easily recyclable NIPU at an industrial scale, with emphasis on mass market goods.
Creating positive outcomes that will enable the implementation of a flagship plant in Germany, managed by Mevaldi.