• BIOrescue
    Research project at Celignis





BIOrescue

"Enhanced Bioconversion of Agricultural Residues through Cascading Use"


ProgrammeCBE-JU, Horizon Europe, BBI.R10-2015
CategoryResearch and Innovation Action (RIA)
StatusCompleted
Period2016 - 2019
Partners11
Budget€3.77m
LinksWebsite, Cordis, CBE-JU, Twitter

Celignis participated in a collaborative EU research project, entitled BIOrescue, that was part-funded by the Biomass Based Industries Joint Undertaking of Horizon 2020. This project evaluated ways to valorise the compost residues from mushroom production. Celignis's roles in BIOrescue included the following:

- Compositional analysis of feedstocks and process intermediates and outputs.
- The development of rapid analysis models, using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, for compositional analysis at several stages in the process scheme.
- The scoping of additional suitable undertuilised seasonal feedstocks for co-feeding with spent mushroom compost in a proposed biorefinery based on the BIOrescue technologies.
- The development of new algorithms, using software such as Octave and R-Studio and involving advanced intelligent regression techniques, to further improve the accuracy of Celignis's NIR models.


BIOrescue had 10 project partners, as listed below:

Partner Type Country
1 CENER (coordinator) RTO Spain
2 Monaghan Mushrooms Large Enterprise Ireland
3 UNINA University Italy
4 MetGen SME Finland
5 Zabala Innovation Consulting SME Spain
6 Greenovate Europe SME Belgium
7 Max Planck Institute of Polymer Research RTO Germany
8 Celignis SME Ireland
9 Imperial College of London University UK
10 C-TECH Innovation SME UK


BIOrescue ran from Sept 2016 to August 2019 and had a budget of €3.7m. Please refer to the project's website for further information.

Summary of the BIOrescue process

Video on the BIOrescue project



Video on Celignis's BIOrescue Algorithms



Other Celignis Research Projects Funded by the CBE-JU

Current Projects


PERFECOAT, a RIA project funded by the BBI JU, targets the development of novel sustainable coatings that will ultimately be available to the public. Celignis is responsible for the extraction and modification of polymers (xylan and chitosan) that will be used as binders in these coatings. Further info...BIONEER, is an Innovation Action project funded by the CBE-JU, under topic HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-06 (Selective, Sustainable Production Routes Towards Bio-Based Alternatives To Fossil-Based Chemical Building Blocks). This project will start in May 2024 with Celignis, an SME partner and full industry BIC member, playing a leading role in the scaled-up (1 m3) production of platform chemicals. Further info...PROMOFER, is an Innovation Action project funded by the CBE-JU, under topic HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-03 (Improve Fermentation Processes (Including Downstream Purification) To Final Bio-Based Products). This project will start in June 2024 with Celignis, an SME partner and full industry BIC member, playing a pivotal role in the project. Our core activities include undertaking the pre-treatment and hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass at scaled-up (TRL7, 1 m3) volumes. The resulting sugars are then provided to other partners for downstream fermentations. Further info...MANUREFINERY, is an Innovation Action project funded by the CBE-JU, under topic HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-01 (Small Scale Biorefining In Rural Areas). This project will start in September 2024 with Celignis, an SME partner and full industry BIC member, involved in the analysis of feedstocks and products of the process. We are also contributing towards the technoeconomic analysis (TEA) of the technologies. Further info...

Completed Projects


The UNRAVEL project (UNique Refinery Approach to Valorise European Lignocellulosics) is focused on the optimsiation of a biomass pre-treatment technology. Celignis plays a key role by analysing and evaluating the extractives present in a wide variety of feedstocks and determining how they influence pre-treatment. Further info...VAMOS concerns the construction and operation of a demonstration-scale biorefinery producing lactic acid from the paper fraction of municipal waste. In the project Celignis will develop custom NIR models for the rapid at-line on-site analysis of the feedstock and process outputs. Further info...

Other Celignis Research Projects Funded by the Horizon Programme

Current Projects


Enxylascope aims at bioprospecting and producing a novel set of xylan debranching enzymes, thereby demonstrating its ability to make xylan a key ingredient in a variety of consumer products. Celignis is playing a key role, being the technical lead and responsible for the extraction and modification of xylan from biomass. Further info...This demo project involves innovative superheated steam processing of unwanted bush and invasive biomass into high-value, clean-burning, low-cost solid biofuel. Celignis will analyse feedstocks, and process outputs, and use our QTOF-LC/MS system to profile the steam condensate for high value chemicals. We will then develop a method to recover target constituents. Further info...BIO4AFRICA will empower smallholder farmers by creating value from locally available biomass. Celignis is analysing a wide range of biomass feedstocks, from a number of African countries, and providing recommendations regarding the most suitable ones, under the best conditions, for the given processing technology. We also analyse the outputs of the various processes. Further info...

Completed Projects


DIBANET was an FP7 research project, written and coordinated by Celignis founder Dan Hayes, that concerned the production of second generation biofuels from biomass feedstocks in Europe and Latin America. The advances in the state of the art of biomass analysis made in DIBANET led to the formation of Celignis. Further info...The focus of ENABLING was on supporting the spreading of best practices and innovation in the provision of biomass for the Bio-Based Industry (BBI). Celignis played a key role in the project with regards to stressing the importance of biomass composition in terms of evaluating feedstock and technology suitability. Further info...Celignis was the sole partner in SAPHIRE. The project, funded by the European Union's INNOSUP programme, concerned the production of high-value hydrogels from lignocellulosic residues. These are expected to have applications in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors. Further info...This was a Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship (MCSA-IF) involving Celignis's Lalitha in which algae were used to recover nutrients from anaerobic digestion (AD) process streams. Further info...

Other Celignis Research Projects

Current Projects


Celignis is the sole partner in STEAME, a project funded by the Irish Research Council and focused on the development of technologies to make anaerobic digestion more financially viable in Ireland. Further info...

Celignis News Articles on BIOrescue

February 28th 2019

Celignis Presentation at BIOrescue Networking Event


The event is being held at the Max-Planck Institute in Mainz, Germany

Today a workshop, entitled 'Building sustainable value chains for the bio-based industry', is being held at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany.

The event is being organised as part of our Biomass Based Industries Joint Undertaking project BIOrescue.

Click here to see the agenda for the workshop and here to register.

Dan's presentation can be downloaded here.

October 11th 2018

BIOrescue Workshop Held in Madrid


Key stakeholders met to discuss opportunities arising from the BBI project.

Key industry players, researchers and regulatory bodies met at a workshop held in Madrid to discuss opportunities arising from the bio-based industry sector and discover the cutting-edge products and processes that will shape the Spanish bioeconomy of tomorrow.

The event was organised as part of the BIOrescue project which Celignis is a partner of. BIOrescue is developing a new biorefinery concept to recover used mushroom compost and other agricultural residues. As part of this project, experts are creating ground-breaking bio-based products such as tailor-made enzyme cocktails, biodegradable nanocapsules for targeted drug delivery, and low cost biopesticides. Celignis is responsible for much of the analytical work in the project and also for advancing the art in terms of the rapid analysis of biomass and of the products of biomass conversion.

An explanation of each product's characteristics, performance and applications was provided to workshop participants after a brief introduction of the project and biorefinery concept. 'In BIOrescue, we look of course at creating a circular economy in the mushroom industry, but we also see the numerous opportunities beyond', says Ines del Campo, Senior Research and Development Engineer and Project Manager at CENER, and coordinator of the BIOrescue project, 'In that sense, our biorefinery concept will be replicable with other types of agricultural residues, and thus relevant for other industries that generate large amounts of biomass waste'.

For the 40 participants, this workshop was also the occasion to explore the latest European and Spanish funding opportunities for the bio-based industry sector. To help attendees finding their way through the existing programmes and foster the development of new initiatives in the bio-based industry sector, Eduardo Cotillas and Marta de Diego from the Centre for the Development of Industrial technology (CDTI) introduced the different Spanish Research, Technology, Development and Innovation funding instruments, and presented European initiatives from the Horizon 2020 programme. Special attention from the audience was paid to the Bio-based Industry Joint Undertaking, the public-private partnership under which the BIOrescue project is funded.

In the final year of the project, BIOrescue experts will study the full life cycle of their products and processes, to demonstrate their positive impact on rural conomies, and especially on the environment. Then BIOrescue is set to launch the next generation of bio-based products and processes for the agro-food market and help establish a sustainable future for the mushroom industry.

Click here to download a handout from the event.

September 28th 2016

Kick-Off Meeting for BIOrescue Project


We are in Pamplona, Spain for the launch of our BBI Horizon 2020 project.

Our Director Daniel Hayes and biomass analyst Daniel Hickey are in Pamplona, Spain for the kick-off meeting of "BIOrescue" a collaborative research project funded by the European Union's Biomass Based Industries scheme.

We will be involved in project-related discussions with the 10 other BIOrescue partipant organisations at the Second Generation Biofuel Centre of CENER, the coordinator of the project.

Click here to see the press-release for this kick-off meeting.






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