Beyond Circularity is Valmet’s R&D program and ecosystem to transform waste and emissions into valuable resources for sustainable growth and accelerating the green transition.
Valmet's Beyond Circularity is an R&D program in which Valmet and its ecosystem come together to innovate, renew and enable their customer industries in the shift to carbon neutrality and to facilitate the green transition.
The Beyond Circularity Program aims to develop process technologies, automation and services to create value by utilizing renewable and recycled materials, industrial sidestream rejects and waste. Circularity is at the core of the program and its ecosystem, and its targets are closely connected to Valmet’s Technology vision 2030 and Climate Program – Forward to a carbon neutral future.
The program is implemented through seven streams: program management, recycling technologies; bio-refining/value adding to waste; resource-efficient industries; automated and digitalized industry and services; service life cycle concepts; emerging new process concepts; and disruptive business.
A new green transition ecosystem is being built as part of this program. Working together within the ecosystem will create value and business for the participants, expand competences to new areas, and encourage the best national and international partners to join. The core of the ecosystem is Valmet’s unique triangular approach of technology, automation and services, enriched by the partners’ interdisciplinary expertise. The ecosystem is expected to have more than 100 partners by 2025.
Valmet plans to invest EUR 40 million in the Beyond Circularity Program between 2022 and 2025. The program is partly funded by Business Finland and is part of the “Veturi” initiative, which invites international companies to solve some of society’s most pressing challenges through increased research, development and innovation.
The Recycling technologies stream focuses on recycling technology development across several areas. These areas include processes for recycling preindustrial and post-consumer textile waste; new solutions for chemical recycling of plastics to enable circularity in petrochemical industry; development of resource efficient continuous panelboard recycling process; and creating readiness to integrate and offer together with partners carbon negative solutions for biorefining and energy industry.
Read more about the Recycling stream.
Read more about related Valmet's solutions:
In the Bio-refining / Value adding to waste stream, bio-materials and waste are turned into products of value. One of the aims is to develop a new biomass pyrolysis solution to turn local sustainable feedstocks into global renewable transportation fuels and biochemicals. This stream also explores energy efficient continuous process to produce micro fibrillated cellulose for different applications and novel process solutions to turn ash waste and lignin into new products.
Read more about the co-research project GreenAro
Read more about related Valmet's solutions
The Resource efficient industries stream focuses on utilization of low energy heat lost from industrial processes through extended energy integration; research into new technologies to find more energy efficient solutions; closing of material loops in industrial processes to enhance material efficiency; using materials with high energy content as energy storage in industry as a part of smart electricity networks; and developing new, sustainable solutions for machine components.
In the stream Automated, digitalized industry and services, the aim is to enable major leaps towards autonomous mills and safe processes, creating a thriving network with partners for developing energy saving and emission reducing services, and innovating novel process measurements for insight into the new processes developed within this Beyond circularity initiative.
Within the Service lifecycle concepts stream, research is conducted on life cycle modelling for the technologies developed in the Beyond Circularity program. Another focus area is development of lifecycle services concepts, taking into account critical indicators such as technical age, emissions, energy consumption, and water use.
Read more about Valmet's full services offering for every stage in the lifecycle.
Janne Pynnönen
Vice President, R&D
Valmet
Virpi Puhakka
Director, Ecosystem
Valmet
Viivi Villa-Nuottajärvi
Director, Internal Beyond Circularity program
Valmet
Kari Koskela
Valmet Veturi lead
kari.koskela(at)businessfinland.fi
Business Finland
Business Finland offers partnership funding for research, development, and innovation projects in leading companies' ecosystem themes. Our Finnish partners, whose joint projects have been accepted to Beyond Circularity ecosystem, may submit a partnership funding application to Business Finland.
More information: Business Finland website and beyondcircularity[at]valmet.com
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