Programme

Hengelo (NL) —> Rotterdam (NL) —> Gent (BE)
08:30-11:00 – Visit to the BTG fast pyrolysis plant.
11:00-13:30 – Bus transfer from Hengelo to Rotterdam. Lunch box on board.
13:30-16:30 – Visit to the Rotterdam harbour.
16:30-18:30 – Bus transfer from Rotterdam to Gent Belgium. Arrival at the hotel and dinner in the city.

BTG fast pyrolysis plant. – Hengelo (NL)

In January 2014 BTG Bioliquids / Empyro BV started construction of its pyrolysis oil production facility in Hengelo, the Netherlands. The Empyro plant converts 5 tons per hour of wood residues into pyrolysis oil, process steam and electricity. Start-up of the installation commenced in early 2015 and production has gradually increased since. Nameplate capacity was reached in 2017 and since then the plant runs on a 24/7 basis. The success of the Empyro project has served as the first leap towards full-scale fast pyrolysis technology commercialization.

Since 2019 Empyro is part of Twence, which focuses on the recovery of raw materials and the production of renewable energy. They where happy to add this unique and successful plant to their portfolio. The Empyro plant in completely operated by Twence personnel since mid-2019. Both parties work together on optimizing this plant further and e.g. build a bulk storage for other possible future feedstock types.

Rotterdam harbour – Rotterdam (NL)

Gent (BE) —> Ostend (BE) —> Dunkirk (FR) —> Brussels (BE)
08:30-11:00 – Visit to the Lanzatech gas fermentation plant at ArcelorMittal.
11:00-12:00 – Bus transfer to Ostend, lunch box in the bus.
12:00-14:30 – Visit to the Renasci plant, waste plastic to fuel oil and cellulosic ethanol.
14:00-15:00 – Bus transfer to Dunkirk.
15:00-18:00 – Visit to the Axens biomass gasification to Fischer Tropsch plant.
18:00-20:00 – Return to Brussels. Arrival at the hotel and dinner in the city.

Lanzatech gas fermentation plant – Gent (BE)

Steelanol: Europe’s first-ever commercial scale production facility to create bioethanol from waste gases produced during steelmaking process. Gas fermentation is an innovative option for further valorization of steel process gases, complementary to the current power plant use and use of the gases for internal thermal energy production.

Key figures

• Investment cost is 185 Meuro
• 90 000 Nm³ waste gas/h from blast and basic oxygen furnace
• Production of  64  000 ton/year ethanol
• Steelanol is eliminating the GHG emissions of 80 million liter of gasoline  over the total chain.

The project, aimed to produce ethanol from steel waste gas, will be sufficient to fuel half a million cars with ethanol blended gasoline.

Renasci plant, waste plastic to fuel oil and cellulosic ethanol – Ostend (BE)

Renasci, creator of the patented Smart Chain Processing (SCP) technology, is a Belgian start-up that provides innovative recycling solutions. The SCP technology is innovative and exciting; mixed waste streams are processed and converted under one roof using different recycling technologies. This has enabled Renasci to introduce an economically viable solution for residual waste treatment. Renasci’s flagship plant (Renasci Ostend Recycling) is located in Ostend (Belgium) and is capable of processing 120.000 ton of waste per year. Through an automated process, it separates, sorts, cleans and recycles waste to obtain streams of plastics, metals and biomass/organics. In the end, only 5% of the original waste remains, and even this residual material is not landfilled, but used as filler in construction materials.Plastics suitable for mechanical recycling are separated into clean and uniformly sized HDPE and PP fractions. The remaining polyolefins are chemically recycled into circular pyrolysis oil. Through this chemical recycling process also, Renasci Ostend Recycling avoids the emission of up to 25.000 ton of CO2 each year!

Axens biomass gasification to Fischer Tropsch plant – Dunkirk (FR)

The BioTfueL® technology is the result of one of the major partnerships in the advanced biofuels field between Avril, Axens, CEA, IFPEN, thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions, and TotalEnergies. The expertise of those partners covers a broad range of disciplines, from biomass resources to the final fuels, from R&D and technology de-risking skills to industrial operators, the consortium objective was to develop a robust, de-risked, and financeable “end-to-end” solution, from field-to-wheel The consortium constructed and successfully operated the world’s largest BTL demonstration units de-risking each process step from biomass pre-treatment through gasification and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in order to prove and optimize the entire BTL BioTfueL® process chain, thus providing the industry’s most proven, scaled-up solution for industrialization. The result is a robust technology that can produce Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), Renewable Diesel (RD) and other valuable products such as Renewable Naphtha, renewable heat, biogas and biogenic CO2.

Brussels (BE) —> Bucarest (RO) — > Craiova (RO)
11:40-15:25 – Flight from Brussels Charleroi to Bucarest.
16:00-20:00 – Bus transfer from Bucarest airport to Craiova. Arrival at the hotel and dinner in the city.

Craiova (RO) —>  Milan (IT) —> Crescentino (IT)
09:00-12:00 – Visit to the Clariant celluosic ethanol plant.
12:00-12:30 – Bus transfer to Craiova airport.
14:05-15:10 – Flight from Craiova to Milan Orio al Serio.
16:00-18:00 – Bus transfer to Crescentino. Arrival at the hotel and dinner in the area

Clariant celluosic ethanol plant – Craiova (RO)

In the southwest of Romania, Clariant completed the construction of its first commercial sunliquid® cellulosic ethanol plant in Podari in October 2021. Production has started in June 2022 after a thorough commissioning phase. The flagship plant will process approx. 250,000 tons of straw to produce approx. 50,000 tons of cellulosic ethanol per annum and represents an important step for the commercial deployment of the sunliquid® technology and thus supports Clariant’s licensing business strategy. 

Crescentino (IT) —> Milan —> Brussels
09:00-12:00 – Visit to the Versalis cellulosic ethanol plant.
12:00-14:00 – Transfer to Milan Malpensa airport, lunch box on board.
16:25-17:55 – Flight from Milan Malpensa to Brussels Zaventem.
18:30-21:00 – Transfer to Brussels city.

Versalis cellulosic ethanol plant – Crescentino (IT)

The Versalis Crescentino plant specializes in producing “advanced” bioethanol from second generation sugars: the first example in the world of industrial application of the Proesa® technology, a process that makes it possible to produce bioethanol defined as ‘advanced’ in that it is derived from lignocellulosic biomass, which does not interfere with the food chain. The bioethanol produced at Crescentino is one of the world’s most innovative industrial-scale biomass chemistry technologies, is ISCC-EU* certified and will be used to formulate gasoline with a renewable component to serve sustainable mobility.The plant is energetically self-sustaining due to the production of renewable electricity and steam from the thermoelectric power plant, which is fed with biomass and the lignin co-produced by the process. A complex water treatment plant also enables the production of biogas, which in turn is used to produce steam, and the process water is recycled, which drastically reduces consumption.The plant’s biomass feedstock is supplied from the surrounding areas, which prompts a short supply chain and supports local producers.

Since July 2020, the Crescentino plant has also been producing Invix® hand and surface disinfectant, a bioethanol-based “medical device” authorized by the Italian Ministry of Health.