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WELCOME TO THE GRAIL PROJECT

Glycerol Biorefinery Approach for the Production of High Quality Products of Industrial Value

biorefineryThe GRAIL project is a 48-month Collaborative Project with funding by the European Commission under FP7 Programme for Knowledge Based Bio-Economy. The theme of the Grail project is “Preventing and valorising bio-waste in biorefineries Optimal and cost-effective industrial biocatalysts”.

 

GRAIL project overview

biorefineryThe GRAIL project has been built with 15 partners from 9 different countries with the aim of finalising the solutions given previously to the valorization of glycerol and transform then in valuable products in a biorefinery approach.

The GRAIL project has a strong business focus and its ultimate goal is to set up implantation of biorefineries in close relationship with biodiesel. This project’s aim is to develop a set of technologies for converting waste glycerol from biodiesel production in a biorefinery concept to end with products of high value such as 1,3 propanediol, Fatty acid glycerol formal esters, PolyHydroxyAlkanoates (PHA), Hydrogen and Ethanol, Synthetic coatings, powder coating resins, Secondary Glycerol Amine, Biobutanol, Trehalose, Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), ß-carotene, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), … .

The GRAIL project has designed an overall strategy based on three main pillars covering all the value chain:

  • Pillar 1: Raw materials: Evaluation of crude glycerol and purification.
  • Pillar 2: Product development: Research and development to transform crude glycerol into other high added value such as biofuels, green chemicals and food supplements.
  • Pillar 3: Industrial feasibility aspects including economic and environmental evaluation. This pillar will take the results of GRAIL from the product development to the industrial site. To carry out that the technical feasibility will be study on a pilot plant in a Demonstration (and the results will be important to evaluate the LCA and the economic feasibility (WP6).