Aberystwyth University
Pilot Plant Facility at IBERS Gogerddan, Aberystwyth University
The BEACON biorefining facility built on the Gogerddan campus at Aberystwyth University (AU) features flexible plug and play, multi-feedstock pilot processing plant. The unit houses a range of key equipment, facilities and associated expertise to enable academic and industrial partners to develop and demonstrate scale-up processes, taking laboratory research to economically viable industrial applications.
The facility includes a primary processing area and a secondary processing pilot laboratory, just a short walk from IBERS' National Plant Phenomics Centre and main laboratory and feedstock breeding research facilities.
Aims
- Provide a flexible environment where plant biomass can be taken from mechanical and thermochemical processing through bioconversion to products such as transport fuels, platform chemicals and fine chemicals.
- Bridge the gap between laboratory and demonstration research and deliver an impact to the commercial sector with collaborative research and development.
- Develop processes, technologies and products from plant biomass that provide alternatives to products made from oil, delivering a positive impact on climate change.
- Develop a growing network of industrial collaborators and encourage academia to business and business to business research and technical development.
- Generate and exploit intellectual property in collaboration with our partners.
- Provide life cycle assessment support to better understand the most economic routes to new and existing products.
Expertise / Strengths
- Basic and strategic research in plant biology.
- Microbiology and biotechnology.
- Chemical analysis of biomass.
- Primary processing of biomass such as ryegrass, miscanthus, clover and oats.
- Bio-conversion of ryegrass into transport fuels and platform chemicals.
- Conversion of biomass into biochar.
- Economic modelling and process evaluation.
