About the OPTUS project

Shrinking natural resources on Earth and increasing environmental pollution makes it necessary to replace the current economy's linear flow of non-renewable fossil-based fuels and chemicals to waste with a circular and sustainable utilisation of our limited resources.

In a bio-based economy, residues that are currently seen as costly environmental problems are valuable raw materials in new bio-refineries. Ideally, a bio-refinery should include production of fuels, food and other components from biomass, and utilise the residues to recycle C, N and P back to agriculture, which would decrease environmental problems such as eutrophication and depletion of non-renewable minerals.

Specific aims of the OPTUS project:

1. Study fibre morphology, variation of root biomass and proportion of lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose and their variation in different Salix clones; identify genetic markers determining these features
2. Test the impact of fibre morphology and wood composition on thermochemical (e.g. pyrolysis) and microbial (enzymatic degradation and fermentation) conversion
3. Evaluate the effects of various Salix clones and their waste products on below-ground carbon cycling
4. Quantify effects on environmental impacts in life cycle perspective, reached by using specially selected Salix clones as raw material for the conversion end-products

   Workflow within the Salix research program:

The numbers refer to the different projects in OPTUS:

1. Genetics of wood traits in Salix
2. Microbial conversion of Salix-biomass to biofuels and high value chemicals
3. Thermochemical conversion of Salix
4. Below-ground carbon cycling and soil organic matter modelling
5. Life cycle analysis for the use of Salix feedstock for production of fuel and chemical

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