Project title: BIOREF- Development of a biorefinery for the valorization of residues produced during biodiesel manufacture towards the production of biodegradable polymers and other high added value products
Project duration: 2010-2013
Budget: € 800.000; Unit of Microbiology € 30.000
Financial support: Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology, European Union
Short project description
The current project runs in the framework of the operational program "Competitiveness and business", PRAXIS I, 2007-2013. The contractor of this project is the enterprise “PETTAS SA”.
Bioref project will focus on the development of a novel biorefinery exploiting residual streams from a first generation biodiesel production industrial plant (Pettas SA) for the production of biodegradable plastics with potential application in food packaging, value-added food additives and biomaterials. The raw material that is used by the company Pettas SA for the production of biodiesel is sunflower seeds and the byproducts produced are crude glycerol and sunflower cake (the protein-rich residue that remains after the extraction of oil from the sunflower seeds).
Crude glycerol will be converted through microbial fermentations into poly-hydroxy-alkanoates (PHAs), hydrogen and microbial lipids (Single Cell Oils, SCOs).
