Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EUCALIVA (EUCAlyptus LIgnin VAlorisation for Advanced Materials and Carbon Fibres)

Teaser

Lignin from pulping process is present all over Europe and represents a big source of underexploited material. There is an estimated 70 million tonnes of lignin available . Until now only about 2% of the lignins available in the pulp and paper industry is commercially used.The...

Summary

Lignin from pulping process is present all over Europe and represents a big source of underexploited material. There is an estimated 70 million tonnes of lignin available . Until now only about 2% of the lignins available in the pulp and paper industry is commercially used.
The current lack of competitiveness of biobased technologies against other industrial (far more polluting) sources requires further development and optimisation of innovative processes that are cost-effective and resource-efficient. F
EUCALIVA project intends to create a valorisation chain of the lignin fraction, using Eucalyptus globulus waste as a source. This will position new biobased materials closer to the market, aiming at progressively substitute those from petrochemical origin (aligning with the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe). Currently these wastes are destined for energy applications within the paper industry, without further valorisation and economic return. This is a low value choice, at the bottom of the biomass pyramid and, instead, EUCALIVA proposes to reach higher levels of value. It is important to valorise this unutilised material (lignin) from a high productive source.
EUCALIVA aims to create evidences to be an “Industrial success case” as a novel integral solution to fully valorise bio-resources at local level, to be then replicated at local/national level by other industrial partners interested in the technology and/or the products obtained within this project. Results will be focused on the development and set-up of a fully-integrated, energetically-efficient, scalable, innovative and flexible system based on the valorisation of the lignin from Eucalyptus tree.
EUCALIVA’s goal is to extract high-purity soluble lignin from the kraft pulping process (black liquors) and to transform the lignin through different lines. New applications will be reached: multifunctional conductive, piezo-resistive and piezoelectric materials, as well as applications based on non-woven fabrics and their carbonized derivatives (activated carbon). Meanwhile, searching for a complete valorisation of the wastes, other polymers like polyurethane from the black liquors will be extracted, characterised and valorised as additives to upgrade the molecular weight of lignin to form the spinnable blends. These precursor products based on lignin will substitute current commercial precursors, such as polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and pitch, derived from petroleum and coal, respectively. The lignin-based carbon fibre can save 50 times more energy as compared to replacing oil with lignin in combustion. In the manufacturing of biobased fibres, it is expected to reduce the energy consumption by 30% giving a market ready solution.

Work performed

WP1 has been devoted to the conversion of BLs (black liquors) from the Kraft process of Eucalyptus pulp into purified lignin. The BLs have been selected and characterized, after that the most suitable technologies for lignin extraction have been selected on the base of the characterisation studies, analyses and tests. Then pure lignin will be used in suitable blends, prepared in the WP2, to be used as fibre precursors for obtaining fibre-based carbon-rich materials (fibres, fibrous mats and non-wovens mainly). WP2 that has the main aim of manufacturing carbon fibres and derived fibre-based materials (fibrous mats and non-wovens mainly) from high-purity lignin, due to the fact that the lignin was under extraction.
An initial study was carried out by literature search on stretchable electronic markets and products. Biosensor srl used benchmarking to design new stretchable electronic product, to set suitable production techniques and to decide materials to be used. To improve the performance and decrease the fabrication cost of stretchable electronics, development of cost-effective stretchable materials with low sheet resistance, high flexibility and superior stretchability is imperative because the resistance and mechanical durability of stretchable electronics are critically related to the electrical and mechanical properties of the precursor materials. Outstanding mechanical flexibility and conductivity of the lignin-based materials are very important for development of stretchable electronics to compete with conventional petroleum-based precursor materials. To this end, feasibility analysis on ease of manufacturing of lignin lignin-based carbon inks and their usage for screen-printed stretchable electronics was performed. First attempt on brush painting of carbon inks on socks was carried out for development of wearable and stretchable electronics. Preliminary and stepwise rigid and flexible screen printed electrodes were produced to demonstrate the possible manufacturability of stretchable electrodes. Impressive proof-of-concept flexible and stretchable screen-printed electrodes (SPE) have been designed with Solid Work 3D drawing program and produced as a wearable point-of-use biosensor for health and environmental applications. Commercially available carbon inks are used to print the working and counter electrode and silver inks to print reference electrode and long serpentine connections on thermos polyurethane substrate. In particular, small size screen-painted carbon electrodes showed good flexibility and stretchability in several test modes, including bending, twisting and stretching, which are critical requirements in stretchable and wearable electrodes. Identificatio of manufacturers/suppliers of Activated Carbon fabrics/textiles that can be used as benchmark (related to Objetive 4.1 from DoA) was done too.
Project management procedures were prepared and sent to the partners, KPIs were established as well as the foreseen target to achieve at the end of the project. These indicators are related to the different objectives of EUCALIVA. Moreover, the communication & dissemination plan was established, pointing out the visual identity of the project, the tools to be used and the way of procedure accordingly.

Final results

The expected impact of the EUCALIVA project is focused on the building-block stage (spinnable lignin blends) since the final products (fibres & smart fabrics) are obtained by more conventional processes.

â–ª Safety, quality and purity of the (new) products are in line with EU legislation and proven to meet end-market requirements in order to facilitate future market access and commercialisation.

â–ª Reduction of industrial side-streams routed to disposal as waste.

â–ª Demonstrated operational and energy-costs savings as compared to existing processes and technologies.

▪ Successful introduction of ‘lignin – to – bio-product’ concepts at semi-commercial scale.

EUCALIVA provides an environmental answer to this problem, since it strongly contribute to decrease the greenhouse effect. EUCALIVA entails a great absorption of CO2, so the environmental benefits associated to this project cover a large variety of aspects (from biomass exploitation to biobased end-products) caused directly by the production of the raw material

Website & more info

More info: http://www.eucaliva.es.