Upcycling forestry side streams to green chemicals
Boreal Bioproducts produces green chemicals from side streams of the forest industry. Technology is based on water and is being operated in a pilot scale in Finland. The products, polysaccharides and polyphenols, are the raw materials for various B2B industries. Boreal’s products are used as in plastic coatings for packaging, industrial polymers, animal feed, glue components, anti-microbial ingredients and even sun-protection in cosmetics. In the big picture, Boreal provides a renewable and sustainable carbon from secondary sources of biomass, thus enabling companies to meet their sustainability targets.
Boreal Bioproducts has partnered with Metsa Group, a leading forest industry player and strategic investor to Boreal. It is now in scale-up phase, with current pilot operations and target to build a larger first-of-a-kind (FOAK) plant at Metsa Group sawmill site in 2027.
Potential future developments
The public sector has been supporting the green transition in Europe effectively by facilitating collaboration across value chains and financing R&D activities. The successful and promising projects and programs must now move rapidly towards commercialisation and investment driven activities beyond the the research phase.
Current contribution
Boreal Bioproducts contributes in several ways:
- By upcycling large volume side streams of the forest industry used for replacing fossil chemicals. With Boreal’s water based biorefinery, we extract natural valuable polymers of the wood, and provide sustainable and renewable carbon product to industries, to reduce use of fossil chemicals and fossil CO2 emissions.
- Build resilient European supply chains for chemicals and reduce dependency onimports. Forest side streams provide a large quantity and scalable source to establish raw materials value chains. European sawmill residues alone make over 40 000 000 tons of woody side streams annually* (*corresponds to side streams of approx. 120 Mm3 of sawn timber in EU). These materials, available 365 days a year, should be utilised as part of the transformation to a bioeconomy, to substitute chemical imports and use of crude and gas. Our approach also does not compete for the land areas available for food cultivation.
- Our biorefineries also help to make the non-capital areas of the Europe economically attractive. Typically sawmills are located in the rural regions of Europe, in need of economic revitalization. Our biorefineries provide a prominent business opportunity supporting also the overall health of these local economies through supply chains impacts and supporting the forestry providers who participate in other operations of agricultural activities.
