Pilot Plant for Process Development

The Pilot Plant for Process Development is used to verify and demonstrate, on a semi-industrial scale, the robustness and stability of technological routes for the production of ethanol and other bio-renewables. The plant is equipped to validate techno-economic and sustainability indicators of processes that have achieved success at the bench scale.

In this way, it is possible to minimize escalation risks, predict bottlenecks, and optimize processes and investment estimates (capital and operational). The installation is totally modular and instrumented, and the units are controlled through automation and architecture software similar to large manufacturing units.

The Plant is composed of three large platforms: Biomass Processing, Physical-Chemical Processes, and Bioprocesses.

– Biomass Processing Platform: covers the processing of biomass in order to receive, handle, prepare, and store the raw material coming from the plants for the subsequent physical-chemical treatment of biomass.

– Physicochemical Processes Platform: has multi-purpose equipment in which studies and evaluations of several types and conditions of processes can be carried out, applied to lignocellulosic biomass, based on the use of solvents, acids or alkalis to catalyze the reactions of the developed processes. This platform also has the necessary infrastructure to evaluate processes of separation, detoxification, and concentration of downstream currents of the processes.

– Bioprocess Platform: it has equipment for conducting fermentation, enzymatic, separation, and purification processes of cells and bioproducts.