Norwegian research council:FME - Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research
Research institutions:
The Centre aims to develop innovative technology and support industries to realize economic and sustainable conversion of lignocellulosic biomass and organic residues to transportation fuels, along with added value chemicals, heat and power.
Key research is to increase the effeciency and yields of major process steps within the different value chains, as well as achieving techno-economic insights for the optimal integration within and across value chains and greater understanding of the environmental consequences of the various value chains.
Bio4Fuels for the first time brings together leading Norwegian research institutions, universities, key national and international partners, major forestry resources owners and regional authority into one common initiative on production of energy carriers from renewable sources.
News from Bio4Fuels
Events
Norwegian Centre for Sustainable Bio-based Fuels and Energy (Bio4Fuels).
A Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME) based at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) since 2017.Bio4Fuels is a cross-disciplinary research centre involving graduate students, PhD students and research scientists at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and University of South-Eastern Norway (USN). The Centre has an extensive network of partners from industry, research institutes and academia, both in Norway and abroad, and public bodies.
The ambition of the Bio4Fuels Centre is to reduce the impact of climate gas emissions from the transport sector through sustainable and economic production of Biofuels. Biomass, in particular low-grade fractions of wood from the forest and waste from agriculture, is a renewable resource that can potentially substitute the use of fossil resources in the transport sector, together with other renewable energy solutions.
There are four main biomass-to-products-routes identified for the Centre:
- Breaking down the biomass to separate the sugars in the biomass for use in fermentation to produce "Bio-alcohols". This can be blended up to certain levels into existing fuels.
- Fermentation of the biomass in the absence of oxygen to produce "Biogas". This Biogas can be upgraded to methane, liquified or converted to hydrogen for use as fuels in transport.
- Treatment of the biomass at higher temperatures in the absence of oxygen to produce a liquid "Biooil", which is then upgraded to a substitute Biofuel.
- Treatment of the biomass at higher temperatures to convert to gas, followed by upgrading of the gas to a substitute Biofuel.
In addition to the main routes from biomass to Biofuels, it is also important to convert side streams and byproducts from the processes to products of higher value than fuels. This can be important to help the overall economics of the commercial process.
In addition to the research on the processes, Bio4fuels has a significant activity focused on issues related to the sustainability and economics related to the production of biofuels:
- Improving the technologies and economics of processes for converting Biomass to Biofuel.
- Investigating the sustainability and impact of large-scale use of low-grade Biomass for Biofuels production.
- Evaluating process concepts and testing the quality of the Biofuels for existing engines.
The research Centre is organized into five Sub Projects (SP):
- SP1: Bio-resource, Environment and Climate
- SP2: Liquefaction Processes
- SP3: Biochemical Processes
- SP4: Gasification Processes
- SP5: Process design and End Use
The Bio4Fuels consortium comprises eight Norwegian academic partners, six international academic partners, 35 partners from industry and NGO's and eight partners representing public bodies. Together the research group adresses the main challenges of the core biomass value chain.
Research partners:
Scientific Contribution Role in the Centre SINTEF Hydrotreating, Fermentation, Separation, Process Design, Tech. Econ. Evaluation, Combustion, Gasification, Liquefaction Centre Leader, SP and WP leader NMBU Pretreatment, Enzyme technology, Fermentation, Anaerobic digestion Host institution, Admin. Leader, Education, SP and WP leader NTNU Environment policy, Combustion, Chemical and Catalytic Conversion, End Use Education, SP and WP leader RISE PFI Liquefaction, Pretreatment WP leader NIBIO Environment policy, Anaerobic digestion Education, WP leader USN Process design, Up-scaling Education, WP leader IFE Anaerobic digestion Research Partner
Public bodies:Trøndelag County, Innlandet County, Statens Vegvesen Framing regulation and fostering industrial development
Industry, NGO's:Norges Skogeierforbund (NO) Lignocellulosics Norges Bondelag (NO) Agri biomass Renovasjons- og gjenvinningsetaten, Oslo kommune (NO) Municipal solid waste Zero (NO), NoBio (NO) NGO Equinor (NO) Feed stock supply, value chains, co-processing Statkraft (NO) Combustion & Stationary energy Biozin (NO), Johnson Matthey (UK), BTG-BTL (BE), Steeper (DK), Silva Green Fuel / Statkraft (NO) Gasification & Pyrolysis Biokraft AS (NO), Cambi (NO), Norske Skog Saugbrugs (NO) Anerobic digestion and Biogas Borregaard (NO), UMOE AS (NO), Novozymes (DK) Biochemical conversion Alginor (NO) Value added Chemicals Avinor (NO), Eco-1 (NO), Volvo GTT (SE), LOGE AB (SE) End users Herøya Industri Park (NO) Piloting & Scale UP Innovasjon Norge (NO), Enova (NO) Innovation Funding agencies
International partners:
Timeline
07 Mar 2024
What does it take to meet the Government's Climate Action Plan ("Grønn bok")
Webinar
15 Feb 2024
CO2 Valorization Using Gas Fermentation Processes
Webinar
23 Nov 2023
Climate Friendly Energy in the Norwegian Armed Forces and Norwegian Contruction Site Engines
Webinar
15 Nov 2023
Bio4Fuels Days 2023 15 - 16 November
Annual Meeting
15 Sept 2023
Updates on anaerobic digestion - Perspective from the United States
Open webinar
24 Aug 2023
Advanced Biofuels and the EU Directive
Open webinar
15 Jun 2023
Novel applications of anaerobic digestion processes
Open webinar
14 Jun 2023
Status meeting
All partners in the Bio4Fuels Centre are invited to three status meetings per year. The meeting was in Teams, and you may download the presentations from the program below.
22 May 2023
WS29: Opportunities of bioenergy and biofuels in developing economies
e-Workshop organized by IEA Bioenergy, in collaboration with UNIDO
27 Apr 2023
Sustainable Aviation Fuelsvia
Open webinar
10 Feb 2023
Forest Resources
Open webinar
2023
Wp2 primo 2023 - ultimo 2024
Enzymatic processing
24 Feb 2022
Ramesh Timsina defended his thesis
«Modelling and simulations of bubbling fluidized bed and entrained flow biomass gasification reactors»
16 Nov 2022
Bio4Fuels Days 2022
2022
WP 1 primo 2022 - ultimo 2023
Sustainable harvesting of biomass
01 Jan 2017
Bio4fuels established
First centre board meeting
Contact the Centre
Duncan Akporiaye
SINTEF
Project manager