Online Seminar  /  October 22, 2013, 3 - 4 pm

Waste wood as a raw material source for bio products?

Waste wood is primarily used to obtain energy. One reason for this is the lack of economically-interesting alternatives. The processing of lignocellulose from waste wood in bio refineries could close this gap. Through the application of various methods of extraction technology, the constituent parts cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin can be won from raw materials which contain lignocellulose. These platform products can in turn be utilised for the production of further chemical primary and derived products, for example in the chemical industry. An increasing market demand for lignocellulose-containing biomass has been confirmed in numerous studies.

Bio refineries also contribute towards the turnaround in energy policy. Biomass can be used to produce the so-called second-generation bio fuels, which have economical and ecological advantages as they do not require agricultural biomass. The raw materials are obtained primarily from dry residue from farming, such as straw, peel/bark and chaff, wood, woody biomass and organic waste, e.g. waste paper, residues from waste-paper pulping and lignin. In order to be able to meet the constantly-rising demand for raw materials on a long-term basis, unused types of biomass must be exploited as a base material in lignocellulose bio refineries. In this respect, recycled waste wood has a high, but previously untapped, potential as a raw material. Within the framework of the Webinar, the socio-political and technical backgrounds will be presented, together with proposals for action and methods of resolution.

The Webinar is directed primarily at public authorities, associations and companies from the wood, wood-based materials and wood-recycling branch who are investigating new distribution channels and who seek to increase their added value through a sustainable material usage of recycled waste wood.

The material usage of waste wood is currently restricted almost entirely to the wood-based materials industry. The estimated capacity within the European member states is more than 50 million tonnes per year. The usage by the wood-based materials industry was presented in the WKI Webinar “Material use of waste wood” in May 2013.