SUBLUBE · CASCADE Hydrolytic Recovery and Conversion of Suberin in High Pressure Media
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-10-15 → 2022-10-14
- EU contribution
- €172,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
CASCADE Hydrolytic Recovery and Conversion of Suberin in High Pressure Media
Bioeconomy is a widely accepted strategy in order to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change while addressing economic, societal and ecological concerns. The SUBLUBE project has been conceived in support of the European Strategy of Bioeconomy, the State R&D Program Oriented to the Challenges of the Society of Spain (Programa Estatal de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad), the RIS3 Castilla y Leon Regional Strategy and the Bioeconomy Institute of Universidad de Valladolid. It aims to contribute to these frameworks by developing green processes that would enable sustainable raw-material-to-product conversions. Specifically, SUBLUBE is envisioned to capture waste streams of the cork processing industry and upgrade the valuable component (suberin) into a useful biochemical (biolubricant). Cork is rich in natural biopolyesters in the form of suberinic acids which can be an alternative to mineral and vegetable oils as a biolubricant base. Conventional chemical pathways for suberin recovery involving alkali hydrolysis and alkali methanolysis reactions are organic solvent-intensive and requires arduous processing, and yet recovers suberin in minimal quantity. Herein, we propose the ultrafast supercritical hydrolysis in a continuous microreactor as a novel process to isolate suberin from cork in high yields, without the use of harsh chemicals and at a shorter reaction time than conventional approaches. Moreover, since supercritical water (SCW) as a low ionic reaction media will allow the hydrolysis of polysaccharides and lignin and will avoid the hydrolysis of biopolyesters, which will lead to the separation of suberin in its intact form. Suberin in its intact form would produce longer-chain structure enriched with multiple functional groups that are more suitable for biolubricant base synthesis in the subsequent processing. SUBLUBE is made possible by the integration of various disciplines such as materials and analytical chemistry, chemical process engineering, and cork chemistry.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Biomass valorization through biorefineries is integral towards the transition to a circular and climate neutral economy by 2050, as envisioned in the European Union Circular Economy Action Plan and in support of the European and Spanish Bioeconomy Strategy and the RIS3 Castilla y Leon Regional Strategy. To realize this, two important challenges need to be addressed: an efficient biomass fractionation system and the development of products close to market. In response to these challenges, the SUBLUBE project aims to recover pristine suberin from cork industry byproducts through a cascaded fractionation-hydrolysis process with supercritical water as reaction media and to convert pristine suberin into highly functionalized biolubricant building block through subcritical water hydrolysis. The research will focus on evaluating the process conditions that would achieve high pristine suberin yields and highly functionalized building blocks in a laboratory scale and pilot scale continuous microreactors. Based from the results obtained, a techno-economic model will be prepared through process modeling and simulation. SUBLUBE is founded upon the integration of applied chemistry, chemical engineering, process fundamentals and materials science as a strategy for forestry products valorization. The findings of this research will benefit the society as a model for scalable biorefineries in continuous microreactors (innovation) that utilizes agro-industrial waste byproducts as resources for the sustainable generation of value added products (pristine suberin, biolubricants). It will lead to additional income streams for the cork processing industry (job creation) while reducing our dependence on vegetable oils and synthetic esters and greenhouse gas emissions. As a whole, this fellowship will support a female foreign researcher in demonstrating ability to work on a project that advances natural product valorization through green and sustainable technologies.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID · VALLADOLIDCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union