Thursday 7th of April the public version of the Iso-Butanol Platform Rotterdam report has been presented to Ms. Adri Bom-Lemstra, the Representative of the Province of South Holland. Province of South Holland supports projects and companies that stimulate green chemical building blocks and has financially contributed to the project via the EFRO. The IPBR consortium members are: BE-Basic Foundation, AVR, Corbion, Deltalinqs, ECN, GEVO, Sweco, Port of Rotterdam, Procede, Delft University of Technology, Utrecht University, Wageningen University and Zirk©Technology. The consortium demonstrated the technical feasibility of a bio-refinery in the Rotterdam area based on the platform molecule isobutanol. The project encompassed the entire value chain from lignocellulosic biomass up to and including the high value end-products striving for entire biomass valorisation.

In this project all individual process steps of the full value chain of the bio-refinery, have been proven on lab scale. The economics of the full scale bio-refinery were calculated in detail based on a dedicated process design. A feasible plant design has been developed for producing Isobutyl acetate (IBAc), GTBE and lignin from wood, with a best-case pay-out time of 6 years. The life cycle assessment shows advantages of the bio-based isobutanol platform in comparison to the petrochemical isobutanol platform. The ‘non-renewable energy use’ is approximately 45% lower in comparison to the petrochemical counterpart. The GHG emissions are up to 25% lower for the bio-refinery in comparison to their equivalent fossil systems. For fresh water depletion, savings can even be up to 58% in contrast to their petrochemical counterparts.

The next step is the development of the business plan for a pilot plant in the port of Rotterdam.

The online version of the Iso-Butanol Platform Rotterdam report (IBPR) is available here. The underlying full scientific reports are available on request.

Dutch press release is available here.