CHBTECH · Sulphur-free production method for non-food biopolymers (dissolving pulp, hemicellulose and lignin)

Wood-based biomass is one of the richest sources of bio-chemicals on Earth. Of the main constituents of wood – cellulose (40-50%), hemicellulose (20-30%) and lignin (20-30%) – mainly cellulose/pulp is utilised today. Rest of the biomass is disposed as waste. The main obstacle for wider use and further development of these hemicellulose and lignin is the lack of availability. Furthermore, current fractionation methods (based on Kraft process) use sulphur, which destroys the material properties of valuable bio-chemicals. CH-Bioforce Oy has developed a sulphur-free biomass fractionation technology, which allows the extraction of all three wood-based biomass constituents in an economically sound way, with extremely high purity, and in industrial scale. Technology is flexible in size, and can utilize practically any kind of wood as raw material, e.g., birch, pine, spruce, eucalyptus, even wheat straw and bagasse. The process works well even with low quality wood, such as sawdust and logging residues, which are not suitable for commonly used pulping processes. CH-Bioforce´s technology offers a renewable and cost-competitive option to replace fossil and food-based raw materials in a wide variety of applications, e.g in textiles, chemicals, and plastics. Company has conducted an intensive material testing and evaluation for dissolving pulp, polymeric hemicellulose and sulphur-free lignin produced by their pilot plants, and has already attracted several global corporations in energy, pulp&paper, and chemical industries. Business model for CH-Bioforce is to licence its technology to companies, who aim to produce and sell bio-based raw materials. Aim of this proposed project is to develop CH-Bioforce´s technology from current TRL-7 to TRL-9, to prepare the business scale up, and to convince the first customer to make the investment decision by the end of the project.