We are proud to be part of GreenSolRes, the new European innovation project consortium for a duration of 48 months starting in September 2016, funded under Bio-based Industries Innovation action within Horizon 2020, the greatest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020). GreenSolRes involves partners from industry and research placed in Belgium, Germany and Netherlands too.

Within the project, a sustainable and competitive industrial production of levulinic acid (LVA) from lignocellulosic wastes and residues originating from forestry and agricultural sector, will be established. The objective is to demonstrate the competitiveness of the LVA value chain in terms of costs, environmental impact and technical performance.

The final project target is to have the optimized process design of all process components in full scale ready stage, enabling commercial exploitation after successful completion of the project. GreenSolRes consists of three process steps, the first step is the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to LVA via a robust and low-impact thermochemical process; the second step is subsequent hydrogenation of LVA to 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MTHF), gamma-valerolactone (GVL) and 1-methyl-1,4-butanediol (MeBDO), a highly efficient technology that originated in the Cluster of Excellence "Tailor-Made Fuels from Biomass (TMFB)" at RWTH Aachen University.

The third step is to formulate and validate the application of these and further downstream products in adhesives and in the pharma sector with an aim to substitute fossil-based C4-analogues.