AustroCel Hallein GmbH has more than 290 employees and is one of the market leaders in China for textile pulp, which is made from softwood. The total sales volume amounts to approximately 130 million Euros. AustroCel’s bio-refinery produces up to 160,000 tons of viscose pulp per year as well as 100 GWh for district heating and 100 GWh of green electricity. Therefore, the Hallein based high-tech company does not only supply clean energy based on wood for its own production facilities but the company also provides 28,000 households with green electricity and another 13,000 with district heating. In addition, AustroCel operates the biggest wood-based bio-ethanol plant in the world producing up to 30 million litres of second-generation bio-ethanol each year.
Involved technology: Cascade enzymatic hydrolysis
Involved demo-site: Austria (DKW)
Role: technology provider – industrial partner for demonstration of new technologies.
In PLASTICE, AUSTRO is the demo-site for implementing the technology of enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose from textiles. Being a biorefinery that already produces bioethanol from chemically hydrolyzed cellulose, AUSTRO provides the necessary equipment and infrastructure to scale-up the enzymatic reaction from the lab scale into the pilot-scale. Additionally, AUSTRO will attend the transition from defined to undefined textile waste streams. Together with the other partners of the workpackage, the learnings of the enzymatic hydrolysis process will be delivered for evaluating further steps like commercialization.
