OptiBark

Optibark wants to use underutilized residual streams from the pulp industry, in this case industrial bark, to produce various types of intermediate products. In total in Sweden and Finland, this biomass amounts to 13 million m³ per year. The intermediates can then be used as raw materials for different types of end-use applications. The raw materials that the project focuses on are industrial bark from conifers and deciduous trees as well as salix.

Salix can be grown in land that is not suitable for either agriculture or forestry. Salix has therefore been identified as a potential future biomass. Salix is also a source of strong fibers and active compounds of various types. The project also intends to develop a process technology for each raw material. The purpose of the process technology is to identify high value applications for all different biomass fractions.

Optibark is a collaborative project between Swedish and Finnish parties consisting of universities, institutes, large industries, and small and medium-sized companies along the entire value chain that can benefit from and complement each other's skills / expertise and optimize lab and pilot utilization in developing new bio-based solutions. The projects goal is to find an efficient and circular use of raw materials by improving and optimizing processes that have already been validated on a laboratory scale.