The Swedish Cleantech company SEKAB E-Technology AB, a subsidiary of SEKAB Biofuels Industries AB played host to representatives from eleven companies and universities from all over Europe that gathered in Örsköldsvik, Sweden for the kick-off meeting for REWOFUEL – an EUR 13.9 million European Union (EU) co-funded Horizon 2020 research and innovation project that aims to demonstrate and evaluate the entire value chain to show how best to use residues from the forest industry to produce biofuels.
SEKAB E-Technology is one of the main technology partners along with France-headed Global Bioenergies. SEKAB’s share of the total contribution is 30 percent, just over EUR 4 million. The long-term goal of the three-year project is that it will result in a variety of bio-refineries spread across the EU, refineries using residual products including forest residuals from the EU forest and sawmill industries as feedstock to produce liquid biofuels such as biogasoline and biojet aviation fuel.
By combining technologies and knowledge from Europe’s best biofuels actors, the REWOFUEL project will demonstrate the increasingly important role that forest remains will play in the transition to a renewable Europe. We are looking forward to having a direct impact on the European climate targets, said Jean-Baptiste Barbaroux, Chief Corporate Officer at Global Bioenergies.
SEKAB’s role is to use its proprietary “CelluAPP” patented technology platform to process cellulosic biomass into sugars and lignin, which can be transformed into biofuels in a next step.
We are proud to be able to deliver the technology needed in the first step in the value chain to convert biomass, which will then be further processed into biofuel. To phase out oil in transportation fuels, it is sufficient to use untapped residual products currently available from the forest industry, said Monica Normark, Project Manager for REWOFUEL at SEKAB E-Technology.
Facts
ABOUT REWOFUEL
The project officially started on June 1 this year and will last for three years. A total of eleven companies and universities from eight EU countries are participating in REWOFUEL: SEKAB E-Technology, Peab Asphalt, SkyNRG, Global Bioenergies, Next Engineering Solutions, Repsol, Ajinomoto, Eurolysine, IPSB, TechnipFMC and Linz University. The total budget is EUR 19.7 million. The contribution from the EU Research and Innovation Programme, Horizon 2020, is EUR 13.9 million. The balance is provided by the project participants.
