This project is the first of its kind that will also demonstrate additional innovative process steps for production of WOODMER^® Seal. The vision of Ecohelix is to become the “sustainability leader” in the production and sales of wood-based biopolymers that accelerate the global shift to sustainable polymer production. Although the implementation of WOODMER^® technology has proven to be more resource effective than current alternatives such as polyethylene, starch etc, the current production process needs to be upgraded to a proper pilot production line in order to enable efficient production of WOODMER^® Seal and increase flexibility towards various raw materials, reduce climate impact further, and decrease cost.

The LIFE WOODMER project aims to build up a pilot facility to validate the innovative components and systems at an industrially relevant scale (5% of full scale) and full operating continuous conditions.

The 1st sub-objective of this project is to verify the innovative process steps and production concept at pilot scale (~5% of full scale) and full operating conditions. This will aid our understanding of the commercial, environmental and qualitative benefits (such as performance in converter machines, customer experiences, and recyclability) our solution can provide for a variety of market segments, placing Ecohelix in a better position to pursue a variety of sales channels in the B2B spaces.

The 2nd sub-objective for this project is to develop and verify a standard production design concept that can be used for construction of full-scale facilities, in order to ensure a competitive production cost of the WOODMER® Seal product. The plants will be based on a standard design, which will simplify the governance of technology and methods, as well as third-party licensing of production capacity.

The 3rd sub-objective for this project is to validate the WOODMER® Seal product when used in relevant packaging adhesive applications. This objective is of vital importance to the large-scale commercialization of the WOODMER® technology, as complexity, and thus cost inefficiency, of installation poses a possible barrier to market entry, and is thus an issue that must be addressed and solved prior to large-scale commercialization.

The 4th sub-objective for this project is to disseminate the outcome of the project to potential stakeholders and target groups in Europe. The first, and perhaps most important part, of the project’s dissemination strategy is to ensure that all key results are spread and communicated to relevant stakeholders throughout the entire value chain, including but not limited to packaging manufacturers, polymer manufacturers, pulp and paper industry players, consumers, policy makers, interest organizations and end users. Here, the trial customers of the project will play an important role.

Finally, the 5th sub-objective for this project is to perform a fast replication and commercialization, based upon the results of the demonstration. During the project a business plan for the following five years after project completion will be set up. The overall goal is to become the leading supplier of sustainable wood-based biopolymers and the innovative WOODMER® technology.

The LIFE WOODMER project will lead to following key results

The project will also include the following results:

• A life cycle analysis (LCA) showing the environmental benefits of Ecohelix WOODMER products in the applications
• A life cycle analysis (LCA) showing the environmental benefits of Ecohelix’s production process and wood-based biopolymers in comparison to today’s situation
• Validation of a model for WOODMER® polymer production with optimal resource utilization and minimal waste creation that can be replicated all over Europe and globally in similar settings as in the LIFE WOODMER project
• Distribution of the project’s results to stakeholders within the European and global polymer industries

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.