EVRY, FRANCE/ STOCKHOLM, ORNSKOLDSVIK, SWEDEN: Global Bioenergies, a producer of light liquid hydrocarbons, Preem Corporation a Swedish petroleum corporation, Sekab Biofuels & Chemicals AB one of Europe’s leading ethanol players and Sveaskog Sweden's largest forest owner who sells sawlogs, pulpwood and biofuel have joined forces to develop a high-performance fuel entirely based on forest resources. They signed a collaboration agreement to conduct a reasonable study for a first plant in Sweden. This work will be carried out as part of the "Bio-Based Gasoline Project" with support from the Swedish Energy Agency and will run during the year 2016/17.
In April Preem, Sekab and Sveaskog collaborated to develop a gasoline fuel based entirely on forest resources. They selected the Isobutene process developed by the French industrial biotech Global Bioenergies for the conversion of wood derived sugars into high performance gasoline.
With close to 30 million hectares of forest land, Sweden positions itself as a pioneer in the sustainable supply of resources for the energy transition. To decrease the nation’s reliance on fossil transport fuels and increase regional impact, state-of-the-art technological solutions must be implemented to convert this natural wealth in ready-to-use, easy to ship high performance sustainable fuels.
Over the coming months, the consortium will concentrate on different plant scenarios to profitably convert forestry products and residues into bio-isooctane, a 100-octane rating, high-performance bio-based gasoline derived from bio-isobutene. The value chain will rely on Sveaskog's foresty activities, Sekab's CelluAPP biomass to sugar conversion process, Global Bioenergies wood-sugars to Isobutene process and Preem's gasoline production processes, blending and retailing activities.
"Our assessment is that forest resources will play a crucial role in the green transition to a fossil-free society. The value chain developed here is of particular interest for Sveaskog since it can use a range of forestry derived by-products and targets a drop-in molecule," said Ann-Britt Edfast, R&D manager at Sveaskog.
"This project will enable the large scale commercial deployment of our wood-conversion technology and will demonstrate how it can open the forestry sector to the vast new array of markets and in the first instance to high performance bio-based gasoline," said Thore Lindgren, VP of Sekab.
"Following a first plant project in France based on sugar-beet we are delighted to now work at its deployment downstream of the Swedish forestry industry," added Marc Delcourt, CEO of Global Bioenergies.
“This partnership offers an entirely new technical solution to produce well known, high performance molecules such as isooctane and to establish a new bridge between our country's forest and our consumers need for sustainable energy sources," concluded Stefan Nystrom, business development engineer at Preem.
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