The supply with raw materials and energy becomes sustainable

Agriculture is to be provided with more efficiency and more value generation Source: Croda

The material and energetic utilization of biomass reduces the emission of gases harmful to the climate, diversifies the raw materials supply and stabilises it long-term. The Fraunhofer Innovation Cluster Bioenergy (UMSICHT) develops now new utilisation concepts for biomass. The objective is to tap optimation potentials in collection, transport, storage and process management.

Worldwide, immense amount of wet biomass containing lignocellulose are generated decentralized. The spectrum ranges from grass and green waste via harvesting residues such as rapeseed straw, processing scraps from agricultural and silvicultural production to biowastes from private households.

Today, wet biomass is utilized less intensely. The reason, on the one hand, is its high water content which results in a low calorific value (low energy density), and which makes its transport and storage more expensive. In addition, the inhomogeneity, the ash content and the bad processability of wet biomass make its utilization considerably more difficult. Quite often, biogas plants are not efficient for the conversion of the difficult to biodegrade biomass containing lignocellulose. Other utilization concepts are often not available. However, wet green biomass has huge potential since it can e.g. preferably be ideally coupled with food production in crop rotation.

Fraunhofer UMSICHT has initiated the Innovation Cluster Bioenergy with the objective to increase the available and utilizable amount of biomass. Over the course of the 4-year project duration, new conversion technologies are to be developed that tap into the potentials of stalk-like as well as wet lignocellulose-containing biomass. To reconcile the food production and biomass utilization and to not create a utilization competition is the overriding objective of the cluster. In this context, new compatible options for the energy and raw materials supply are to be created and export technologies for a growing technology world market will be provided.

The work focuses on two fractions of biomass that are generated constantly and in large quantities. Those are stalk-like biomass that occurs on the field when harvesting as well as residual material fractions from local and regional processing, e.g. from food production. The fractions are to be converted with suitable technical processes into carbon-rich intermediate products for the raw materials and energy supply that can, where possible, be converted to final products in the existing infrastructure. However, until this vertically integrated production process can be implemented, several process steps need to be optimised.

The pre-processing of wet biomass and decentralized biomass processing are in the focus for this project.