One of the most important challenges of the 21^st century is the substitution of fossil fuels and petro-based materials by next generation biofuels for shipping and aviation. These new technologies should have a commercial potential, must not compete with food production but should have a lower environmental impact and lower GHG emissions than the current renewable energy technologies.

The FLEXI-GREEN FUELS project aims to create a very flexible integrated biofuels process capable of treating multiple types of waste biomass and produce a range of marketable shipping and aviation drop-in biofuel products and valuable side-products. The integrated FLEXI-GREEN FUELS process will diversify the feedstocks that have previously been used for production of aviation and shipping biofuels. Two distinct types of biogenic waste resources are targeted, Lignocellulosic biomass (LIGN) and Organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW).

Semicontinuous organosolv pretreatment is used for the separation of cellulose and hemicellulose fractions from lignin, aiming at optimal conversion of each stream. As lipids are far superior bio-crudes towards hydrocarbon fuels, this project will develop and optimize three efficient methods to convert sugars to lipids (fungal fermentation, algae dark fermentation and lipid rich larva production), which will be further converted via advanced hydrotreatment (HDO/isomerization) to diesel range (C16-C18) alkanes. We will combine this with the utilization of furans (from pentose/hexose sugars) via condensation (C-C coupling) and hydrodeoxygenation routes to allow production of dropin aviation fuels. And with utilization of lignin fast pyrolysis via selective fractionation, hydrodeoxygenation and alkylation towards aviation fuels (C8-C17) and/or bunker type fuels (>C18).

The project will help to solve the problem of utilization of OFMSW and LIGN and support forest, agricultural, and municipality waste-industries with additional value creation and jobs in the industry using the principles of green circular economy while increasing feasibility in the production of low GHG footprint, renewable fuels, and valuable side-products.