Forest Technology
A new sustainable raw material
Reselo is phasing out fossil resources from the chemical industry. Our process of developing novel biorefinery is the only current market solution. During biorefinery, biomass can be converted into valuable compounds to create fully renewable materials.
We use birch bark, a residue of the global pulp, paper and plywood industry, to produce our unique material Reselo Rubber.
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The need for a change: Biorefinery –
Sustainable Materials from Forest Biomass
Traditional oil refineries separate crude oil into different fractions which in turn serve as starting material for the manufacturing of virtually all goods that surround us everyday ranging from pharmaceuticals to plastics, coatings and even asphalt.
Since using fossil resources is a main driver of climate change, humanity is starting to realize that alternative ways of creating the vast majority of today's products need to be developed. For plastics alone, this means we have to change a global industry that generates over 400 million tons of materials each year.
In analogy to the oil refinery, biorefinery aims at separating biomass into valuable streams that can either replace fossil-derived feedstocks in existing processes or serve as basis for the development of new products. We use the biorefinery approach to help the rubber industry to start replacing the 15 million tons of fossil-derived rubbers they use every year to manufacture products like tires, shoes or gaskets.
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Birch bark for sustainable rubber production
To address this need at scale, we have identified the ideal feedstock: birch bark. Birch bark is already today available at million ton-scale since it is a residue created by the global pulp, paper and plywood industry.
Using a residue of an existing industry has several advantages:
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Low environmental and societal impact since no additional land use is required to generate our feedstock
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Established upstream supply chain from forest owners to debarking
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Availability at industrial scale
Birch bark is highly flexible and this characteristic is based on a structure called suberin. Suberin is a natural polymer, a network of structurally similar building blocks that we liberate from the biomass and then put back together using our proprietary technology creating Reselo Rubber.
The resulting polyester network forms our unique rubber material which we have studied in great detail.
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The process: Efficient Green Chemistry
Isolating suberin from birch bark has been studied for decades. So far, most approaches focused on isolating individual suberin compounds as the basis for generating new materials. However, this strategy is associated with product yields below 1%, making any derived process commercially unattractive. In contrast, our material involves isolating bulk suberin, which increases product yields, thus allowing us to target bulk applications with a high impact.
Our process is designed around green chemistry principles meaning we are using only benign solvents, which can ideally be produced from biomass as well. Further, our process is optimised under relatively low reaction temperatures and high solvent recovery yields.
We're aiming at valorising all biomass streams we generate, preferably in high-value material applications or at least as an energy source to fuel our process.
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Scaling: Key for environmental impact
After developing our process concept, we are not building a pilot plant but instead collaborating directly with industrial infrastructure suppliers and piloting service partners, unlocking opportunities for rapid validation and cost efficiency. This allows us to validate our process much faster and at a lower cost.
Working early on with equipment suppliers ensures that our process is built around robust and
scalable infrastructure. Through these collaborative efforts, we also tap into the knowledge and experience of specialised industry experts, which facilitates our internal process
development and scale-up activities.
Our own first plant 2027
We are targeting a high production capacity, making our operations commercially viable, significantly reducing the time-to-scale and the associated time-to-market.
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