Bioeconomy Arena accelerates the transition towards a fossil free society

By 2045 Sweden will be a fossil free welfare state according to an articulated goal by the Swedish government. To get there, we need to find effective ways of replacing fossil substances with biobased ones. With the expansion of Bioeconomy Arena, RISE is creating new opportunities for organizations to test their best ideas.

?There are already plenty of ideas on how to transform society into a bioeconomy. The question is; which ones will really work and revolutionize the way we live and manufacture things? This is where RISE’s Bioeconomy Arena can make a difference. At the stage where an idea needs to be tested against reality, Bioeconomy Arena can provide the infrastructure that many actors and organizations lack. ?

There are already several facilities at RISE where different types of testing, evaluation and certification of biobased fuels and materials can be performed. By the end of 2023, the existing infrastructure will be accompanied by an important missing piece: a new pilot hall in ?rnsk?ldsvik in the north of Sweden. This new facility, that is currently under construction, will become the heart and center of the Bioeconomy Arena and carry Sweden a huge step forward in its strive to become a fossil free society. ?

???"The equipment in the new pilot hall will make it possible to scale-up a lot and our capabilities within biotechnology and chemistry will increase significantly", Johanna Mossberg, manager of the Biorefinery and energy unit at RISE, explains.

In addition to the much greater capacity, some of the equipment creates entire new possibilities, such as providing food grade biotechnology equipment, high-throughput screening and electrochemistry.

?rnsk?ldsvik holds the center of Bioeconomy Arena

The location of the new pilot hall was chosen because ?rnsk?ldsvik already have several facilities for related research and therefore is an active node for RISE within the field.

???"In ?rnsk?ldsvik we have existing competence and equipment which makes it logical to strengthen our presence there", Johanna says.

What makes Bioeconomy Arena unique is partly its pure size that makes it possible to scale-up testing a great deal before going to market. Even more important however, is its wide range.

"Bioeconomy Arena gathers one of the world’s largest and most potent bioeconomy research environments. It provides a broad variety of scales for research, development and testing of almost all biorefinery processes", says Johanna Mossberg. ?

Through the new pilot hall in ?rnsk?ldsvik, Bioeconomy Arena is about to grow and become a more defined offer within RISE, but it has already played an important role for several organizations in their strive to implement new innovations on the market. One company has been able to test new ideas for recycling material in rubber tires. Another one, a start-up, could with the help of Bioeconomy Arena, build pilot equipment for a new process that uses ionic liquids to split biomaterials that can then be used for paper, textiles, biocomposites and nanocellulose.

?When the pilot hall in ?rnsk?ldsvik has been up and running for five years Johanna believes that RISE together with the industry will have facilitated several biorefinery value chains and given basis for further up-scaling and implementation.

? "I think that at least some of these will be in the process for commercial production, contributing to reducing carbondioxide emissions and growing the bioeconomy in Sweden. I expect more than 30 companies to have verified their concept based on the support they have gotten from RISE and Bioeconomy Arena", Johanna concludes.

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About Bioeconomy Arena:

Bioeconomy Arena is RISE’s collection of facilities for the development, upscaling and commercialization of new bio-based products and solutions. The arena has infrastructures located around Sweden, but its center will be the pilot hall that is currently being built in ?rnsk?ldsvik. The new pilot hall will be running from early 2024 and onwards.

Bioeconomy Arena offers companies and organizations all the equipment and competence they need to test and upscale new innovations before introducing them to the market. The facilities are open to use for all actors interested in commissioned work or in publicly funded projects. If you are interested in setting up a project or getting a quotation for usage of some parts of the equipment you can contact [email protected] for further guidance.