I have reported in June on Tecnon OrbiChem’s Bio-Materials newsletter about this newly-launched Valchem project, which received €13.1 million funding from the European Union to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of an integrated biochemical process covering the whole chain from wood raw materials to a selected platform chemicals and lignin-based performance chemicals. The project is comprised of collaboration between UPM (Finland), Sekab (Sweden), METabolic EXplorer (METEX in France) and Technische Universitat Darmstadt (Germany) with a total budget of €18.5 million.

The ValChem project, which stands for ‘Value added chemical building blocks and lignin from wood’, will use Sekab’s CelluApp® technology, which extracts sugars and lignin from biomass such as wood and straw. The cellulosic sugars will then be used to produce glycols using METEX’s process. High value added lignin applications, such as lignin-based reactive resins and composites, will be developed jointly by UPM and Technische Universitat Darmstadt.

The ValChem project will use existing demonstration plants from its collaborators to produce wood-based chemicals that are reportedly competitive with fossil alternatives in terms of quality and production costs. The wood raw material will be sustainably- sourced PEFC and FSC-certified wood.
The ValChem project is part of the BBI Joint Undertaking: a new €3.7 billion partnership between the EU and the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) aiming at increasing investment in the development of a sustainable bio-based industry sector in Europe.

The blog has been seeing increase R&D and commercialization collaboration partially funded by the European government. I have been compiling these news that I reported from Tecnon OrbiChem’s Bio-Materials newsletter.