Alder Bioinsights News Review: Feedstock Issue 155, February 2025

Foreword

In this month’s foreword we are focusing on recent developments related to Biorefineries within Europe. Circular Bio-based Europe (CBE JU) plans to invest €76 million in four flagship biorefineries in 2025, a significant increase from prior projects of such nature and nearly half of its current annual budget. The funded biorefinery projects cover urban-industrial symbiosis for bio-waste valorisation, bio-based drop-ins/smart platform chemicals, circular-by-design fibre-based packaging, and the retrofitting of biorefineries.

German Verbio is set to manufacture renewable specialty chemicals from rapeseed oil methyl ester in the world’s first large-scale ethenolysis plant. The plant will produce large quantities of renewable molecules for the chemical industry starting in 2026. These chemicals will be used in detergents, cleaning agents, high-performance lubricants for engines, and plastics. The plant is unique in its process technology, using certified, sustainably produced rapeseed oil as the raw material. The advanced distillation column will be used to prepare the raw ester from the biodiesel plant, prior to the ethenolysis which will make use of innovative catalysts from Verbio’s subsidiary, XiMo. The plant is expected to have a nominal annual manufacturing capacity of 32,000 tonnes of 9-DAME and 17,000 tonnes of 1-decene, with an objective to manufacture 60,000 tonnes of renewable products annually.

Italian Enilive has recently launched its first sustainable aviation fuel plant at Gela biorefinery in Sicily, Italy, with an annual production capacity of 400,000 tonnes…