The €1.2 million project is sponsored by the French National Research Program for Bioenergy and managed by the French Governmental Agency for Environment and Energy Efficiency (ADEME).
The three-year project is intended to deliver a baseline study of the technical and economic results of a small pilot plant installed at a pulp mill.
The French National Research Agency will provide 50% of the funding to the corporate partners, cellulosic biofuels technology company Genencor, the research and development arm of French paper/pulp company Tembec, with the assistance of educational institutions INSA Toulouse's Laboratory for Biotechnology & Bioprocessing, and the University of Bordeaux's Pine Institute.
The Pine Institute is the project leader and coordinator.
Jean-Claude Pommier, executive president of the Pine Institute’s strategic committee, said the study could make a significant contribution to the forestry products industry.
"We believe adding a biorefinery capacity to the paper pulp industry will be a sustainable innovation that will have broad impact,” Pommier said.
Genencor will provide advanced biomass cellulases and application expertise to optimise the enzymatic hydrolysis of paper pulp samples provided by Tembec and the Pine Institute.
"This is an excellent project to establish the viability of an advanced cellulosic biorefinery for ethanol production," Genencor vice president Jack Huttner said.
"Genencor has been working at the bench scale in lab conditions on one part of the technical challenge. This project links us with others in the value chain to integrate several unit operations into a whole system-level design. This is a critical step in the development of advanced biorefineries attached to the paper pulp industry."
Tembec will analyse the economics to evaluate the system for commercial deployment by the pulp industry.
INSA's Laboratory for Biotechnology and Bioprocessing will provide fermentation expertise through its Microbiology Engineering Team, while The Pine Institute will share its expertise in pulping and handling and expertise in lignocellulose analysis and characterisation.
Lignocellulose is a combination of lignin, a complex polymer that binds to cellulose, hardening and strengthening plants at a cellular level.
Researchers around the world believe that if a cost-effective process for breaking down “woody” plant matter for conversion to biofuels can be developed, the biofuels industry could run sustainably using forestry and agricultural waste, rather than competing with food crops, which are generally easier to process into biofuels.
