Our biorefinery projects and facilities

The first step
– a joint venture biorefinery in India

A new biorefinery in Assam, India, is expected to start its production in 2024. This 2G biorefinery will utilize 300 kilotons of bamboo per year, producing bioethanol to Indian fuel markets, as well as furfural, acetic acid and biocoal. The bamboo is harvested locally, supported by a digitalized sourcing system that ensures direct and transparent payments to local farmers, chippers and transporters.

The biorefinery is a joint venture of the Indian oil refinery company Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), Chempolis and Fortum. Being the first-of-a-kind commercial plant based on the Chempolis biorefining technology, it will prove the process capabilities at an industrial scale. This will pave the way towards optimized utilization of biomass for high-value materials and chemicals.

The next step – a biorefinery in Europe

Our next step is to set up a 2G biorefinery in Europe that uses agricultural residue, namely straw, as feedstock. Straw will be converted into high-quality raw materials with the formico® biorefinery technology of Chempolis. The biorefinery will produce cellulose fibers, sulfur-free lignin, furfural and acetic acid on a kiloton scale. To enable material efficiency at its fullest, we also aim to valorize the various side streams from these conversion processes.

Chempolis pilot plant

The pilot-scale testing and development are done at Chempolis’ premises in Oulu, Finland. The operations of the pilot plant include feedstock pre-treatment and handling, as well as fractionation process piloting and optimization with different feedstocks. The downstream material development focuses on meeting the needs of specific target industries and their applications. The pilot plant allows scale-up up to hundreds and thousands of kilograms of output.