Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGBA solid foundation for process development – with Fraunhofer CBP
HV-Polysaccharides distributes tailor-made polysaccharides for pharmaceutical applications. The company’s achievements have included designing a process for extracting xylan from beech wood that makes it possible to adjust the properties required for pharmaceutical applications with precision. This approach also dispenses with the use of otherwise common chemicals. Since our very beginnings, we have been seeking out partners who can help us develop our process so that we can achieve greater technological and economic maturity. With this in mind, we got in touch with Dr. Christine Rasche and Dr. Moritz Leschinsky (now at UPM Biochemicals) from Fraunhofer CBP and piloted our process at the facilities there in order to create product quantities beyond the scale possible in the lab and gain experience in scaling up.
Relatively quickly, the trusting, uncomplicated cooperation that we found resulted in the idea of combining our process for xylan extraction with Organosolv fractionation developed at Fraunhofer CBP. In order to map the full complexity of this kind of a process development, the company Glatt Ingenieurtechnik from the Weimar/Dresden area was brought in. With funding from the Fachagentur für Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (German Agency for Renewable Resources), this consortium has now successfully developed the XyloSolv process, which enables the main components of beech wood to be used holistically.
Building on the success of our cooperation, we are now planning to create our own biomass fractionation plants and hope to start production in 2025. Should new ideas for a development in this area or a similar one arise in the future, Fraunhofer CBP would certainly be my first port of call to flesh out a project.
Holger Wondraczek