Investigadores Icesi: María Francisca Villegas (PI), Guillermo Montoya (CoI), Giovanni Rojas (CoI)
Colombian economy is centered in agriculture, producing tones of residual biomass per day either left on the soil or disposed as waste. A big proportion of it is catalogued as lignocellulosic material that can be employed as feedstocks for the production of high value chemicals and second-generation bioethanol. These practices have not been implemented in Colombia yet due to processing costs, which are not compensated by current bioethanol revenues (Pereira-Hernandez et al., 2015). Nevertheless, if they are combined with the manufacture of higher value products (e.g. resins, thermoplastics, PHAs), these additional revenue streams can make the process sustainable and profitable. Lignin valorisation strategies for the production of resins and thermoplastics are part of the extensive expertise of the ICT Fraunhofer in chemistry and process engineering. Icesi, on the other hand has been working on biogas and PHAs production from the carbohydrate fraction found in lignocellulosic biomass. Thus, to develop a sustainable process for lignocellulose valorisation we propose a long-term research and training partnership between ICT Fraunhofer and Icesi, aiming at developing a bioprocess strategy for lignocellulosic biomass resulting in the production of resins, PHA-based polymers, biogas and fertilizers. The above will result in a sustainable processing strategy for residual biomass that can be implemented by several actors within the agricultural sector developing the Colombian bioecenomy and improving social welfare into the sector.
Colaboradores: Fraunhofer ICT, Universidad del Valle
Financiador: BMBF - Minciencias
Fechas: enero 2017 - diciembre 2018
Contacto:
Maria Francisca Villegas
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Guillermo Montoya
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Giovanni Rojas
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