The VEHICLE project on forestry bioindustry, with the participation of CT BETA, has come to an end

The BETA Technology Centre of the UVic-UCC has participated in the European project VEHICLE, led by the company Avantium and developed by a consortium of partners who last week held their last meeting in Novara (Italy). The VEHICLE project, which has lasted four years, has received funding through the public-private partnership between the European Union and the BBI, the main European consortium around the bioeconomy and bioindustry, which has recently changed its name to Circular Bio-Based Europe.

This project has served to demonstrate the feasibility of applying new technologies, both biotechnological and non-biotechnological, for the valorisation of forest industry by-products with a high hemicellulose content. Currently, the management of these by-products can be very costly, given that they have very little commercial value. VEHICLE studies whether the adoption of new valorisation strategies in modern biorefineries could provide a new potential source of income for this industry.

The BETA TC, which has been the only representative of the academic world in a consortium made up exclusively of companies from the sector, has led the evaluation of the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the new technological proposals developed within the framework of VEHICLE. Overall, all this work has served to bring to the table three new value chains and new bioproducts with the potential to be marketable.