Brazil-EU Cooperation for Development of Advanced Lignocellulosic Biofuels (BECOOL)

The main objective of the BECOOL project is to strengthen EU-Brazil cooperation on advanced lignocellulosic biofuels.

BECOOL is strictly aligned with BioVALUE, a twin project in Brazil funded by five State Foundations and five industrial companies.

Information alignment, knowledge synchronization, and synergistic activities on lignocellulosic biomass production logistics and conversion technologies are key targets of both projects and will bring mutual benefits.

The two projects adopt a synergistic work programme that is based upon three common pillars:

1. Biomass production and feedstock diversification;
2. Biomass logistics;
3. Conversion processes
   

Together with improved logistics, the establishment of the BECOOL innovative cropping systems will enable to increase biomass feedstock availability by at least 50% without negatively impacting food production, soil quality, and customary land uses. The improvements in gasification process efficiency of new feedstocks will allow to achieve an optimal gas quality from non-conventional sources (e.g. lignocellulosic crops and residues).

The use of energy carrier in gasification will allow to overcome a major logistics barriers for low-energy density feedstock, while the valorization of lignin-rich residues will dramatically improve the energy efficiency of the overall value chain. Technological breakthroughs on pre-treatment, hydrolysis and enzymatic saccharification and fermentation steps will increase the competitiveness of biochemical advanced ethanol. The cross-project model benchmarking, carried out between EU and Brazil, will decrease present limitations on growth, logistics and process academic models, making them more reliable, opening opportunities for business, new jobs, reduced land pressure, and enhanced environmental benefits in EU and Brazil.

The BECOOL consortium is composed of 14 partners from universities, research institutes, large industries/SMEs, from 7 EU countries. 

The members of BECOOL consortium are: 
University of Bologna (Italy, coordinator)
Biochemtex s.p.a. (Italy)
Biomass Technology Group (The Netherlands)
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (Spain)
Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving (Greece)
Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (Italy)
Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum Gemeinnuetzige GmbH - DBFZ (Germany)
Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (The Netherlands)
ETA-Florence Renewable Energies (Italy)
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis - IIASA (Austria)
Consorzio per la Ricerca e la Dimostrazione sulle Energie Rinnovabili (Italy)
Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands)
Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy (Finland)

Text adapted from official BECOOL website

Last edited: 03 October 2019