Fortum, UPM and Valmet (formerly Metso) are continuing their collaboration on catalytic pyrolysis integrated with CHP plants, as demonstrated at Joensuu, but shifting the focus to advanced high value lignocellulosic fuels, such as transportation fuels or higher value bio liquids.
The new five-year project is called LignoCat (lignocellulosic fuels by catalytic pyrolysis) and is seen as a natural continuation of the consortium's earlier bio-oil project carried out with VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland), which trialled CHP-integrated pyrolysis technology for production of industrial heating oil.
In the new project, the consortium says it "aims higher", with the target of producing high value biofuels to replace fossil transportation fuels, thereby creating "new business for the consortium companies."
"This project is a straight continuation of our first CHP-integrated bio oil investment at Joensuu and supports perfectly our strategy to increase total efficiency and value of our fleet of CHPs. The project's scope opens us the possibility of exploring interesting new business opportunities and to define our role in the production chain of advanced biofuels", says Jukka Heiskanen, head of R&D at Fortum's heat business.
The LignoCat project is funded by Tekes - the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
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