Rehap partake in Iberoamerican Biorefineries Conference

Running for its fourth year, the noteworthy Iberoamerican Congress on Biorefineries took place in Jaén, Spain and partner Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant presented on their work and involvement in Rehap.

© 4-CIAB

For 2018, the Iberoamerican Congress on Biorefineries returned to Jaén in Spain for the fourth edition (4-CIAB) on 22-26 October, where the Iberoamerican community on biorefineries could network, share and gain new knowledge on the current developments happening in the field in both Europe and across the pond in Latin American countries.

The Iberoamerican Congress on Biorefineries has previously taken place in Los Cabos, Baja California (Mexico) in 2012, Jaén (Spain) in 2013 and Concepción (Chile) in 2015. The congress of Iberoamerican comprises countries or territories in the Americas where Spanish or Portuguese are the predominant languages, with Spain and Portugal included in this definition.

Across the two-day event there were 12 main sessions that were led by a keynote speaker and followed by a range of oral presentations from various projects and expert speakers. The sessions included, but were not limited to:

Biomass for biorefineries
Biochemical processes
Green chemistry
Advances in biorefineries
Techno-economic evaluation, sustainability and LCA analysis
Lignin production and applications
Rehap, represented by partner Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (BBEPP), took part in the session Ongoing biorefinery projects, chaired by Frederik de Bruyn from BBEPP and Caterina Call from IMECAL.

BBEU’s presentation discussed what it is doing as a multi-purpose pilot facility for bio-based products and processes, why piloting is important and the role they play in various partner projects, including Rehap: hot water extraction of tannins, solid liquid separation of the bark residues, scale-up of soda cooking, solid liquid separation after soda cooking, and scale-up of the lignin precipitation and of the enzymatic hydrolysis.

In the wider biorefinery industry, it was noted that there is currently a lot of ongoing work involved with the agroforestry waste industry and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and forestry waste such as residue leaves, pruning or dedicated crops.

(Based on the works presented at the 4-CIAB, Industrial Crops and Products will publish a special issue looking at: Biomass Fractionation; Bio-based products and materials; Bio-based Energy.)

For more information, visit the 4-CIAB website: http://ceaema.ujaen.es/4CIAB/home-2/

Countries

Belgium, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, United Kingdom