Microbially Recovered Lignin for Foams (MireLifo)

MireLifo涉及两个多学科的研究活动，将由两个独立的研究中心开发：南威尔士大学厌氧消化中心和班戈大学生物复合材料中心。该合作伙伴关系提议使用低价值资源(动物浆液中的豆渣)作为原材料来生产高质量的绝缘泡沫(具有高阻燃性，不含氟化物阻燃剂，低烟雾产生，低热能传输-减少泡沫厚度)。该项目将与塔塔钢铁公司合作实施，该项目将有助于可持续木质素-酚醛泡沫的开发和测试，以及Bryn Power公司，后者是一家新型厌氧消化厂的运营商，该厂使用来自其1500个畜群的动物浆液的重要原料成分。厌氧消化中心将重点使用厌氧消化--作为生物处理的第一步，以获得富含木质素的消化液，可在绿色分离技术的帮助下将其微生物处理成酚类化合物，以获得定义良好的低聚木素树脂。生物复合材料中心将专注于生产新型木质素聚合物结构，具有合适的流变学和机械/热性能，用于绝缘泡沫。MireLifo的目标是从正在造成重大环境影响的低价值动物浆液中提供高价值的木质素-酚醛产品，并将这种回收与生物质能源的生产和NPK的回收联系起来。MireLifo泡沫产品样品旨在通过生物衍生、嵌入碳较低、不含氟阻燃剂及其相关的重大环境和健康影响、在火灾情况下或在生命周期结束时焚烧时将显著有毒烟雾降至最低，从而在质量和可持续性方面超过当前的塔塔钢铁建筑行业的产品范围，并可能实现最终用途泡沫产品的更可持续和循环回收。这些优势仍将与关键性能标准相关联，包括高热工性能、防潮性能、高防火性能和结构强度。

MireLifo involves two multidisciplinary research activities, to be developed by two separate research centres: Centre for Anaerobic Digestion, University of South Wales and The BioComposites Centre at Bangor University. The partnership proposes using a low value resource (digestate from animal slurries) as the raw material to produce high quality insulation foams (with high fire resistance without fluorinated fire retardants, low smoke production, low thermal energy transmission - reduced foam thickness).The project will be delivered in collaboration with Tata Steel that will be contributing to the development and testing of the sustainable lignin-phenolic based foams as well as Bryn Power that are operators of a novel anaerobic digestion plant with a significant feedstock component of animal slurries from their 1500 herd farm. The Centre for Anaerobic Digestion will focus on using Anaerobic Digestion-as a first step in bioprocessing to obtain a lignin-rich digestate, that can be microbially bioprocessed into phenolic compounds integrated with the aid of green separation techniques, to obtain well defined oligo-lignin resins. The BioComposites Centre will focus on producing novel lignin based polymeric architectures, with suitable rheology and mechanical/thermal properties to be used in insulation foams.MireLifo aims to deliver high value lignin-phenolic products from low value animal slurries which are creating significant environmental impact and associate this recovery with production of bio-energy and recovery of NPK as well. MireLifo foam product samples aim to exceed current's Tata Steel product range for the construction sector in terms of quality and sustainability by being bioderived, with a lower embedded carbon, with no fluorinated fire retardants and their related significant environmental and health impacts, minimise significantly toxic fumes in case of fire or during end of life incineration and that could potentially enable a more sustainable and circular recovery for end use foam products. These advantages will still be associated with key performance criteria that includes high thermal performance, moisture resistance, high fire performance and structural strength.