Refinery integration, scale-up and certification for aviation and marine biofuels production

Among solutions to reach an EU net zero emissions economy by 2050, advanced biofuels have the potential to save several gigatons of CO2 emission per year.

However, their development is hampered by a complex feedstock to be processed, the massive investments needed for each new refinery unit, the lack of certification for market adoption and above all, social acceptance of the biofuel production itself.REFOLUTION will tackle these limitations by delivering a cost-effective production (reduction of CAPEX by 50% and OPEX by 45%) of advanced biofuels for the aviation and marine sectors via a process that can be implemented in existing European refineries.

REFOLUTION will demonstrate the transformation of bio-oils produced from fast pyrolysis (FP) into advanced biofuels, through intermediate process steps (stabilisation, fractionation) combined with downstream co-processing technologies at different levels of severities (temperature, hydrogen consumption, carbon yield) for targeting different applications: Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) co-processing for aviation (TRL7) and marine sectors, and hydrotreating for marine (TRL6).REFOLUTION is gathering 14 leading EU entities covering the full biofuel value chain to deploy risk-mitigation pathways for successful implementation into existing refineries.

The project will deliver a comprehensive toolbox of models, standards, social assessment and exploitation pathways for interfacing with current refinery models and available documentation for further replication in other existing refineries, from a dozen in 2030 several hundred pyrolysis units delivering bio-feedstocks to the 90+ refineries in 2050.