Jyri-Pekka Mikkola lab

The lignocellulosic biomass such as wood played a very significant role in Sweden’s circular economy in terms raw material to paper, food as well as fuel industries. In this regards, the primary responsibility of the researcher was to use of these renewable resources of biomass such as lignocellulosic biomass to value added products such as biofuel and biochemical and reduce the dependency on fossil fuel and, simultaneously, contribute to diminshing environmental pollution.

One of the great achievement of our research group is to produce gasoline from bioethanol using multiple catalytic system in continuous flow process. The process is also duly patented and has today 4 liters /day production capacity to produce gasoline. The important part is that this in-house produced gasoline has fulfill the requirements and highly compatible with current car’s engines. The upscaling of the process to pilot scale is in progress now to achieve 40 Liter/day capacity with help of industrial partners. Soon the commercialization of this process for gasoline production from bioethanol is going to be achieved. 

The research group have invented new route for the synthesis of industrially important ethyl chloride from bioethanol using cheaper solid catalytic system in continuous flow process. The upscaling of the process is in progress with the help of industrial partner such as Processum in Örnsköldsvik.

Further, two start-up companies have been initiated, namely ECO-OIL miljöbränslen i Sverige as well as SpinChem AB. Both companies are currently going through an interesting growth period.