Liquid Biofuels

BIO-REF aims to find technical solutions for sustainable production of ethanol, butanol and other liquid biofuels in addition to chemicals from suitable biomasses, such as lignocellulosic materials to make biofuels from biomass in an economic and sustainable way.

The conceptual biological process is built on three platforms:

1. Physical, chemical and biological pretreatment of biomass
2. Enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated materials
3. Fermentation of C6 and C5 sugars

The physical and chemical pretreatment is a main competence. The program has been deeply involved in development of core technologies such as the Inbicon (IBUS) and Biogasol pretreatment processes. The research on enzymatic hydrolysis is done in collaboration with world leading industries in this field for efficient conversion of the fractionated sugar polymers into simple fermentable sugars represented mostly by C6 (glucose) and C5 (xylose and arabinose) sugars. Fermentation of sugars to liquid fuels is done under simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) by means of yeast strains or fungi. An important part of the research is doing thorough mass balances based on chemical analyses of raw materials and products as well as analyses of potential fermentation inhibitors.