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News 24 February 2020

Brazil-EU Cooperation for Development of Lignocellulosic Advanced Biofuels


BECOOL is a Horizon 2020 project for the development of advanced lignocellulosic biofuels produced from sustainable agricultural value chains. Launched in June 2017 and ending in 2022, the project is based on three pillars: production and harvesting of non-food crops and crop residues, efficient biomass logistic and optimization of processes to convert biomass into advanced biofuels.

Integrated food-and-fuel farming systems

BECOOL 1In 2019, the work on integrated food-energy crop rotations schemes of BECOOL entered in the third year of evaluation. The feasibility and the sustainability of growing annual lignocellulosic crops integrated in conventional maize-wheat rotations were assessed. The preliminary results indicate that introducing those crops into traditional rotation schemes has no negative effects on cereal grain yields, while it can increase the overall biomass production per hectare and improve soil conditions. Optimization of biomass logistics for advanced lignocellulosic biofuels varying for different feedstocks, regions and conditions is another component of the project.

Optimization of conversion processes

BECOOL 2Another work package of BECOOL aims at the optimization and the integration of different thermochemical and biochemical conversion processes for advanced lignocellulosic biofuels. In the last months a series of tests were carried out for the gasification and the pyrolysis of a wide range of biomass feedstocks. Batches of a slurry made with fast pyrolysis bio-oil (FPBO) and slow pyrolysis charcoal were also prepared and gasification tests were conducted also on pyrolysis oil and slurry.

First BECOOL – BIOVALUE joint meeting held in Brazil

International cooperation for the development of advanced lignocellulosic biofuels is one of the main features of BECOOL, whose activities are aligned with those of BIOVALUE, a twin project funded by Brazilian state foundations and industries which started in 2019.

BECOOL 3The first BECOOL-BIOVALUE joint meeting was held in Recife, Brazil, in December 2019. On this occasion partners from both Europe and Brazil engaged into parallel panel discussions about how to exploit all the synergies and complementarities between the two projects. Combining the large expertise of the two consortia can deliver significant innovations and indeed many ideas and opportunities emerged from the spontaneous talks among the partners during the meeting. Some examples:

  • Technologies developed by SME manufactures of agricultural machineries in Europe could help to increase the efficiency of harvesting sugar cane straw, an abundant but still challenging feedstock for second generation biofuels in Brazil;
  • The experiences in the cultivation of sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea) by LNBR in Brazil could benefit to the development of sunn hemp cultivation as a summer cover crop in rotation with cereals in Greece, Italy and Spain, especially with regard to the identification of new varieties and cropping schemes;
  • Several ongoing projects and research initiatives both in the EU and in Brazil were identified, that can feed their results and provide complementarity to BECOOL and BIOVALUE;
  • A wide range of in-depth tests on feedstock characterization, gasification, pyrolysis and gas cleaning, (for example on sugarcane bagasse) can be implemented by combining and aligning the analytical capabilities already available at European and Brazilian laboratories.

BECOOL 4On the last day of the project meeting, BECOOL partners had a study tour to the sugar and ethanol factory Usina Petribù S/A in Lagoa do Itaenga - Pernambuco. The agricultural unit of the company manages over 21,000 hectares of sugarcane, while the sugar cane mill has an installed capacity of 160,000 tons of sugar per cropping season and can produce up to 200,000 litres of ethanol per day.

Upcoming events

BECOOL will be presented at the upcoming Biofuture Summit II and the Brazilian Bioenergy Science And Technology Conference BBEST 2020, which will take place on 30th March – 1st April 2020 in São Paulo, Brazil. The activities of the project will be also presented at the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition from 27 to 30 April in Marseille. A side event workshop on 29th of April will be dedicated to discussing synergies and opportunities from Brazil-EU cooperation in research and innovation for advanced lignocellulosic biofuels.

www.becoolproject.eu

EU flagBECOOL – Brazil-EU Cooperation for Development of Advanced Lignocellulosic Biofuels is coordinated by the University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural Sciences, and is carried out by a consortium of thirteen partners from seven EU countries, including universities, research institutes, industries and SMEs.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 744821.

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