In July 2023, the Horizon Europe Project PYSOLO (PYrolysis of biomass by concentrated SOLar pOwer) was officially launched and will be up and running for the next four years. The project aims to prepare the ground for a novel game-changing and fully renewable process combining concentrated solar power and biomass pyrolysis.
The EU’s chemical industry urgently needs to abstain from fossil resources by switching to renewable carbon. The energy and heat needed to run industrial processes have to derive from renewable sources like wind power and solar energy. However, this decarbonisation via electrification of the industry is not enough to meet the climate Paris-COP21 targets. Also, the feedstock for chemicals and materials has to come from renewable sources like recycling, CO₂ capture and biomass.
PYSOLO offers a solution both for decarbonisation of the transport sector and industrial processes, and defossilisation of the chemical industry. This will be done by combining concentrated solar power (CSP), renewable energy sources (sun and wind) and biomass (wood) pyrolysis.
PYSOLO was granted for about 5 Mio € to a consortium combining the expertise of nine partners from four EU countries under the lead of Politecnico di Milano (IT). These are the French L’Institut National de l’Environnement Industriel et des Risques – INERIS, the German Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. and the nova-Institut für politische und ökologische Innovation GmbH, three partners from Italy, Consorzio per la Ricerca e la Dimostrazione sulle Energie Rinnovabili, Politecnico di Torino and EU CORE Consulting SRL, as well as the Spanish Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and the Consorci Centre de Ciencia I Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya.