ChristyD
The new PACE project (Potato Juice to Fatty Acids for New Bio-based Value-Chains in Europe) intends to demonstrate, at industrial scale, how an underutilised side-stream from the potato processing industry can become a valuable source of sustainable bio-based chemicals.
PACE will demonstrate a first-of-its-kind full-scale biorefinery by retrofitting part of Avebe’s existing facility and realising a plant based on ChainCraft’s proprietary technology for conversion of organic residues to biobased chemicals. Using advanced fermentation and microbial chain elongation, it will transform potato juice into bio-based medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), which have applications across the chemical industry.
The four-year project is an important step toward reducing Europe’s dependency on fossil and palm oil-based chemistry while strengthening local, circular value chains. By integrating circular solutions into existing industrial infrastructure, PACE demonstrates how industrial side-streams can be transformed into scalable and commercially relevant chemical building blocks.
As Niels van Stralen, project coordinator, said: “PACE demonstrates how circular chemistry can become part of existing industrial systems at a meaningful scale. By upgrading infrastructure that already exists and using locally available side-streams, we show that sustainable chemistry does not have to start from scratch. PACE is an important example of how Europe can build more resilient and circular chemical value chains.”
The PACE consortium will now focus on getting the biofrefinery up and running, optimising the MCFA production process, and proving that bio-based MCFAs are suitable for targeted industrial applications. It will also carry out sustainability, circularity and market uptake assessments to support future replication across Europe.
PACE is co-funded by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking.
