EUCALIVA: a project to reuse waste from paper industry
The European project EUCALIVA (EUCAlyptus LIgnin VAlorisation for Advanced Materials and Carbon Fibres), which gathers 6 partners around Europe, has just started.
It will be focused on developing and setting-up a fully-integrated, energetically-efficient, scalable, innovative and flexible system based on the valorization of lignin for producing lignin fibres mats.
EUCALIVA is a research project based on extracting high-purity soluble lignin from the kraft pulping process (black liquors) and to transform it through different lines, achieving a cost-efficient alternative to today’s petroleum-based carbon fibre raw material. New applications will be reached: multifunctional conductive, piezo-resistive and piezoelectric materials (e.g. stretchable electronics and smart fabrics from functional fibres), as well as applications based on non-woven fabrics and their carbonized derivatives (activated carbon).
Lignin from pulping process is present all over Europe and represents a big source of underexploited material. There is an estimated 70 million tonnes of lignin available from pulping processes worldwide, but much of this is not isolated but burned onsite to provide steam for heat and power production. Until now only about 2% of the lignins available in the pulp and paper industry is commercially used. EUCALIVA aims to create a valorisation chain of the lignin fraction, using Eucalyptus globulus waste as a source.
Expected results can be summarize as follows: reduction of industrial side-streams routed to disposal as waste, demonstrable operational and energy cost savings, introduction of ‘lignin-to-(bio)-product’ concepts at a semi-commercial scale, delivery of one new building block based on biomass of European origin validated at demonstration scale, and improving innovation capacity and the integration of new knowledge.
EUCALIVA was selected among different proposals in the EU funded H2020 BBI JTI 2016 call for projects on “Valorisation of lignin and other side-streams to increase efficiency of biorefineries and increase sustainability of the whole value chain”. This project will have a duration of 42 months and it has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undetaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. EUCALIVA is estimated to have a total eligible cost of 2.419.871€ and it will receive funding of about 1.795.010€.
