Descrizione del progetto
Utilizzo di biomassa legnosa per produrre energia
La produzione di biogas da rifiuti organici sta crescendo in Europa, in modo da contribuire al raggiungimento degli obiettivi UE per le energie rinnovabili. È il caso dei rifiuti lignocellulosici: grandi quantità vengono raccolte sotto forma di letame animale, fanghi di depurazione e rifiuti solidi urbani. Il progetto BioFuel Fab, finanziato dall’UE, sta sviluppando una soluzione energetica autosostenibile e versatile per garantire che questo processo sia economicamente redditizio e sostenibile per l’ambiente. In particolare, sta applicando un processo di digestione (pre-trattamento ad alta temperatura e alta pressione) che rende la biomassa legnosa (derivata dagli alberi) adatta alla digestione anaerobica. Nel complesso, questa soluzione innovativa dovrebbe mettere la redditività della produzione di biogas da rifiuti lignocellulosici alla pari con gli impianti di biogas esistenti che utilizzano colture energetiche come materia prima.
Obiettivo
THE PROBLEM.
In June 2018 the EU institutions agreed on a new Renewable Energy Directive for the next decade, including a legally-binding EU-wide target of 32% for renewable energy by 2030 and indicating a biogas production of 50 billion m3 per year as a crucial milestone in achieving this goal. But, yearly biogas production growth rate is on a steady decline, due to the stringent regulations imposed by EU that fix thresholds in the use of energy crops and food-derived biomasses as feedstock for biogas generation plants (mainly Anaerobic Digestion - AD). On the other side, lignocellulosic materials are still not properly exploited since woody wastes are largely unaffected by digestion, as most anaerobic microorganisms are unable to break down lignin. As a consequence, biogas operators cannot use the most available no-food derived raw material in their plants.
THE TECHNOLOGY.
Finrenes has developed BioFuel Fab, an energy self-sustainable and versatile solution able to make biogas production from lignocellulosic wastes economically profitable and environmentally sustainable. This is achieved thanks to a proprietary high-temperature and high-pressure pretreatment process that makes woody waste suitable for anaerobic digestion. Performances are disruptive: the digestion process speed is increased up to 75%, empowering the AD plant capacity by 3 times. The innovation allows to reach a profitability of biogas production from lignocellulosic waste material to be comparable with energy crops and makes convenient to convert the existing biogas plants using energy crops as feedstock to a BioFuel Fab fed by woody wastes, with a payback for the investment of 2.5 years.
Campo scientifico
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactors
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterialsbiofuels
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Invito a presentare proposte
Vedi altri progetti per questo bandoBando secondario
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1
Meccanismo di finanziamento
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinatore
33100 Tampere
Finlandia
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