CH-Bioforce receives over €2 million grant from EU’s Horizon 2020

CH-Bioforce has received significant funding as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 SME programme.

CH-Bioforce was one of 68 companies selected for funding by the SME Instrument strand of the European Innovation Council in the final round of 2018. The project has been allocated a total budget of over €3 million and will run for two years.

A cost-efficient option, CH-Bioforce’s technology offers a sustainable way of replacing fossil and food-based raw materials in a wide range of applications, e.g. in textiles, chemicals and plastics. Thanks to funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 SME Instrument, the company is now able to scale the technology up to an industrial level and take the final step towards entering the market.

CH-Bioforce has developed a sulphur-free biomass fractionation technology which allows all three wood-based biomass constituents to be extracted in an economically sound way, with extremely high purity and on an industrial scale. The technology is flexible in size and can utilize practically any kind of wood as the raw material, e.g., birch, pine, spruce, eucalyptus and even wheat straw or bagasse. The process works well even with low quality wood such as sawdust or logging residues, which are not suitable for commonly used pulping processes.

Together with its partners, CH-Bioforce has conducted intensive material testing and evaluations for dissolving pulp, polymeric hemicellulose and sulphur-free lignin produced in its pilot plants. During the 24-month project period from March 2019 to February 2021, the technology will be developed further and specific steps taken towards a successful market entry.