ProviDES (2016-2018) – PriDES (2019-2022)

   

ProviDES is a research project supported by the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership between the European Union (H2020 programme) and the Bio-based Industries Consortium. This project gathered 22 European partners, of which 18 industrial companies.

PriDEs is a research project supported by TKI-Energie en Industrie, a Dutch organization and paper companies. It gathers 13 partners, of which 7 industrial companies.

Aim of the project

The ProviDES project is a European research project following the CEPI “Two team project” initiative. The main objective is to evaluate the unique potential of deep eutectic solvents (DES) for developing innovative processes for the wood delignification, able to generate added value from co-products (lignin, hemicelluloses) and allowing a reduction of 40% of the carbon footprint of the forestry chain. It aimed at the design of efficient DESs at low temperature and at atmospheric pressure for the fractionation of wood into fibres, lignin and hemicelluloses.

The PriDES project is a collaborative project with some partners of the ProviDES project to study in depth the use of one DES in the manufacture of paper fibres with quality comparable to sulphite or kraft ones, taking into consideration the extraction of lignin and hemicelluloses from the generated black liquors allowing the DES recycling in the cooking.

The European ProviDES project allowed CTP to develop an expertise in the use of DESs (Deep Eutectic Solvents) for the production of lignocellulosic fibres from wood chips of eucalyptus, spruce and miscanthus.
The pulping parameters were studied with a DES composed of choline chloride and lactic acid : dry matter content of wood chips, liquor to wood ratio, temperature, time and washing of the produced pulp. The optimisation of the process were done with eucalyptus wood. Unbleached pulps with a quality comparable to that of a kraft pulp were produced but the fibres presented a significant structural degradation, due to the hemicelluloses hydrolysis by the DES treatment done at very low acidic medium. The bleachability of these pulps was not established but some preliminary oxygen delignification stages allowed demonstrating the good reactivity of these pulps to decrease the kappa number.
Some batches of sereval grams were produced from the three studied wood species.

Partners 

The ProviDES project received the financial support of Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BIO2017-86559-R) in the frame of the European Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through the n°H2020-BBI-JU-2015-66970 agreement.

The ProDES project is a collaborative project with some academic and industrial partners of the ProviDES project to develop and optimize the technology based on the use of new DESs dissolving efficiently lignin and on the recovery of molecules (lignin and hemicelluloses) in a concept of close loop circuit process. Neutral and alkaline DESs were tested in order to limit the drawbacks observed with the acidic DESs, due to the hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicelluloses. The project aims on spruce wood and the objective is to produce pulps with quality comparable to that of sulphite and kraft pulps from the same wood species. The recycling of DES contained in the generated black liquors is essential for the viability of the process, which will be modelled to facilitate its optimisation. In this project, CTP work is to determine the optimal conditions to produce fibres, of their washing and to evaluate their paper quality (refining ability, mechanical and optical properties, fibres morphological characterization).

This project has received the support of TKI Energie en Industries.