LIBERATE kick-off meeting was held at Barcelona the 18^th of October of 2018. The European Union has awarded a grant of 10 million Euro to LIBERATE, a Horizon 2020 collaborative project carried out by an international consortium led by Leitat. The project partners are research centres and universities such as the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, TNO, SINTEF, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, University of Alicante, large enterprises like Evonik, Perstorp, and Oxiris, and SME’s including CHIMAR, Megara, NX Filtration, Condias, ENSO, Idener, and Gate2Growth. The project was officially launched on the 10^th of October in Barcelona at Leitat’s headquarters.

LIBERATE will deliver a pilot scale electrochemical plant to demonstrate the commercial opportunities of converting low-cost lignin, extracted from biomass such as wood, in high-value bio-sustainable chemicals. Currently, lignin is being burnt for energy purposes, but LIBERATE aims to change that. The project will extract basic chemicals for the European industry to produce valuable products such as polymers or antioxidants, currently coming from the petrochemical industry.

“With LIBERATE, Europe goes a step further towards a circular economy model. It will make the industry less dependent from imported oil and reduce the impact of industries on the environment by reducing CO2 emissions and increase energy efficiency” says Angel Valdivielso, Project Technical Manager at Leitat.

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