Valmet’s new Pretreatment BioTrac pilot facility was started up at Valmet’s Fiber Technology Center in Sundsvall, Sweden.
The purpose of the pilot facility investment is to strengthen Valmet’s research and development capabilities within the field of biomass pretreatment and to respond to new market demands for bioenergy, biofuels, and biochemicals. The pilot facility offers piloting and laboratory services for Valmet’s customers and provides the opportunity to test different feedstocks and develop, verify, and optimize the pretreatment process for specific purposes.
The pilot facility’s pretreatment system is flexible and can process many different raw materials. It is designed to enable several different process configurations, such as acid impregnation, and several different reactor configurations including vertical and horizontal reactor system. The process control is safeguarded by Valmet DNA system.
“This investment is an important step forward for us as an innovative company and becoming a world leader in technology in the biorefinery area. Our pilot facility can help evaluate the performance of Valmet’s pretreatment systems with various raw materials or material mixes for each project. This reduces the customer’s investment risk in adopting new technology. Furthermore, customers can optimize and verify their pretreatment process at pilot scale, before scaling up to demonstration and commercial scale. The system is flexible for both raw materials and process alternatives,” says Olof Melander, Senior Manager, Valmet Fiber Technology Center.