Technological watch

European Union’s Horizon 2020 project Zelcor (“Zero-waste ligno-cellulosic biorefineries by integrated lignin valorisation”) aims at finding a sustainable technical solution for the conversion of the recalcitrant by-products present in the side streams of ligno-cellulosic biorefineries. Zelcor concept is to combine biological conversion with chemical and enzymatic treatments, in order to develop an integrated flexible biorefinery system for the conversion of heterogeneous and variable recalcitrant by-products.



The system is expected to provide several high added-value intermediate bioproducts available for the formulation of coating materials, packaging plastics and cosmetics. The project overviews a ‘zero-waste’ goal through a cascading approach based on sequential fractionation, depolymerisation and refining, with valorisation of the streams generated at each stage. The Zelcor project consortium comprises 14 organizations from 8 European countries. This public-private partnership benefits a 4-year funding (2016-2020) from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Zelcor project is organizing a webinar series. In this webinar, leading scientists will present the project progress and special topics. The next webinars are planned on 7th and 8th of July 2020. Please find the webinar topics and joining link below.

1. Application of lignin in packaging

Broadcast date: 7 July 2020
Time: 11:00 am, CET
Click here to register

Topics and speakers:

Technical lignins: a source of bio-based multifunctional antioxidants
(Stéphanie Baumberger, Professor, AgroParisTech, France)

Use of lignin as an additive in polyethylene for food protection
(Jérome Vachon, Staff Scientist, SABIC – Technology &Innovation, the Netherlands)

2. Safety, lifecycle and techno-economic analysis of lignin valorisation

Broadcast date: 8 July 2020
Time: 11:00 am, CET
Click here to register

Topics and speakers:

Life cycle assessment of lignin valorisation from integrated biorefinery concept
(Xun Liao, Senior Sustainability Consultant, Quantis, Switzerland)
Targeting safe use of biomass residues in modern biorefinery platform: a focus on lignins
(Guy Marlair, Technical Advisor and Senior Research Leader Accidental Risk Division, INERIS, France)

Techno-economic evaluation and social impact assessment as tools for the feasibility decision of an integrated biorefinery
(Achim Raschka, Head of Technology and Markets, nova-Institut GmbH, Germany)

A live Q&A session will follow the presentations, offering you a chance to pose questions to our expert panelists.
To register the webinar, click the above links. Alternatively, you can find this information at the Zelcor website: http://zelcor.eu/webinar/. Further information and updates regarding the webinar link will be send to the registered Email address.

Source: ZELCOR Project, 2020-06-25.