Biorefinery pilot plants

A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and value-added chemicals from biomass feedstocks.

The biorefinery concept is analogous to today's petroleum refinery, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum.

Scion has the expertise to support growing global interest in biorefinery processing.

This expertise is based on a long history of research and development for the pulp and paper industry.

Our focus is on developing biorefinery processes to create new products from renewable lignocellulosic (woody) materials. Many of the technologies currently used by the pulping industry will form the basis of future biorefineries.

Biorefinery co-products

Co-products available from the pulping process include extractives, lignin and hemicelluloses. Our fibre processing specialists are also contributing to important new developments in biofuel research, producing ethanol from lignocellulosic material.

We plan to demonstrate this process at pilot-scale using the existing lab-scale methods.

Our research and development activities relate to the following key areas:

• Pre-treatment processing
• Saccharification
• Fermentation
• Modelling (economic, energy and engineering)
• Lignin isolation

 Contact: Elspeth MacRae