Green Biorefinery Research and Infrastructure
Munster Technological University, through CircBio, play a leading role nationally and internally in the development and scaling of green biorefinery research. Biorefineries are seen as key enabling technologies for the widespread implementation of the bioeconomy and support the sustainable conversion of biomass into a spectrum of marketable products and energy. Green Biorefineries are a specific subset of biorefineries which utilise green biomass, such as grasses, legumes, green crops and residues and immature cereals, as a raw material for obtaining proteins (food or feed grade) ingredients, chemicals, bio-materials, energy and fertilisers. For over a decade, CircBio have led and collaborated with key research partners, companies and farmers to evaluate the potential of green biorefineries for Ireland, Europe and beyond, in projects such as Biorefinery Glas, Farm Zero C, Rural BioReFarmeries and Bio4Africa.
CircBio has also played a leading role in scaling up state-of-the-art green biorefinery infrastructure at a national level and through its bench, pilot and demonstration scale facilities, it now delivers a research platform to scale green biorefinery processes up to commercially relevant research scales, in preparation for real-world implementation by industry partners. The group comprises a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers with bespoke experience in development and implementation of green biorefineries across diverse feedstocks and products and is widely published in this field.
An overview of key infrastructure and projects is provided below.
Green Biorefinery Infrastructure
Green Biorefinery and Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Plant
CircBio MTU in collaboration with our partners have developed Ireland’s first Green Biorefinery and Anaerobic Digestion demonstration platform at Farm Zero C, in Bandon, Co. Cork, Ireland. Farm Zero C is a collaborative initiative aiming to develop a climate neutral dairy model for the farming sector and integrates the latest cutting-edge mitigation technologies and practices on a real dairy farm at Shinagh Estates. In 2023, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine invested €3.1 million jointly to MTU and UCD to develop a new state-of-the-art green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion system on the farm, in collaboration with Carbery, along with University of Galway, BiOrbic and Shinagh estates. The facility is one of the largest research facilities of its kind in the world and was launched officially by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon on 1st of September 2026. The facility operations at up to 5 tonnes fresh weight biomass input per hour and includes a flexible and advanced pre-treatment system for green biomass, extraction processes for proteins and ingredients and an advanced anaerobic digestion for co-product of high value-products, energy and bio-fertilisers. The facility is integrated with central processing and advanced data capture systems. The facility includes lab facilities for bench processing, feedstock and product analysis and office space team members.
Green Biorefinery Upstream and Downstream Pilot Plant
MTU Kerry Campus through CircBio and the Centre for Applied Biosciences Research (CABR) have initiated Ireland’s first green biorefinery pilot facility. The pilot facility, funded by Enterprise Ireland, with processing capacity of approximately 100kg per hour can process diverse and small volumes of green biorefinery feedstocks providing a bridge between bench scale and demonstration scale research at MTU and Farm Zero C. The integrated processing facility includes upstream equipment for separation and filtering of green juice from grass and protein precipitation and separation of produce leaf protein concentration and brown juice. The downstream process facility includes high-speed centrifugation and flexible membrane separation units for the further separation and purification of high value products for the food, feed or ingredient markets. Various feedstocks have been processed to date in the facilities including grasses, legumes, green crops and residues and aquatic biomass. Full bench facilities are in place for initial screening of biomass potential and bench processing.
Research and Demonstration Projects
Rural BioReFarmeries
Rural BioReFarmeries is €9 million Circular Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking Innovation Action led by MTU in collaboration with Irish and international partners. The project brings together farmers, industries and other partners across Europe, to demonstrate a farmer-centred bioeconomy model aimed at maximizing the potential of Europe’s vast grasslands. The project will demonstrate a novel small-scale, decentralized, rural green biorefinery value chain, which addresses the limitations of existing green biorefineries. This small-scale decentralized model places farmers at the centre of the biomass value creation close to their farms, allowing them to co-produce inputs for their farms, with additional high value-added intermediates and products, which will be further developed in collaboration with centralized facilities and downstream industry partners. The model provides a practical implementation of the bioeconomy among a large farmer cohort and builds on the existing farm enterprises and cooperative structures of our partners, enabling collaboration, scale-up, market access, and building synergies across primary and industrial sectors. The project advances state-of-the-art for green biorefinery in terms of operational model, logistics, processing, product development and assessment methods, which collectively deliver a more sustainable and profitable model for farmers and rural communities. The model will serve as a blueprint for farmers to sustainably diversify into the bioeconomy, reducing their farm emissions while creating new products which displace unsustainable alternatives in a range of agri-food markets. Rural BioReFarmeries model will be replicated to diverse regions of Europe, supported by the development of inclusive business models and hands-on training among multi-actor groups and communities in regions of high potential. The project represents a highly replicable model for Europe’s abundant grasslands, helping farmers to deal with sustainability and profitability challenges while helping rural communities to become more resilient while realizing the potential of their local bioresources.
Website: https://ruralbiorefarmeries.eu/
Funder: Circular Biobased Europe Joint Undertaking
Budget: €8,813,011.23
Grass4Value
Grass4Value builds on Ireland’s strategic advantage in grass production by demonstrating novel integrated green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion approaches in a sustainable, cascading value chain to create feed, forage, food and health ingredients with co-production of energy and fertilisers. The project builds on previous Irish grassland and green biorefinery projects, including Biorefinery Glas, Farm Zero C, SMARTSWARDS and Rural BioReFarmeries, but advances this work beyond state-of-the-art in grass biomanufacturing by interconnecting funded demonstration and pilot scale infrastructure at Farm Zero C, Lisheen Bioeconomy Campus and MTU. Grass4Value takes a whole value chain approach (see Figure 1 below), looking first at improving sustainable grassland cultivation, and then optimising the utilisation of these green crops via novel green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion to sustainably meet our food and feed security needs, whilst also generating value-added co-products, energy and fertiliser.
Grass4Value will help to advance the potential of Ireland’s grassland-based proteins by co-producing a forage for ruminants (biorefinery press cake), grass protein concentrates for monogastrics (pigs) as well as ruminants (calves and ewes), and high-value human food ingredients, increasing the usable protein in grass by 40% and significantly reducing our soy imports with a scalable grass-based alternative. The project will scale two first-of-its-kind novel green biorefinery pilot downstream processing routes aimed at enhancing cascading use to high value and sustainable products. Validation activities will assess the technical performance of feedstocks, processes and products, including field & large-scale feed trials, real-time process monitoring, characterisation, functionality and bioactivity testing. Sustainability impacts from outscaling Grass4Value green biorefinery approaches will be assessed using LCA and GOBLIN land use model. A thematic network including industry, coops and policy makers will be established to provide inputs on requirements for commercial adoption, while site visits and training programmes will be developed to support greater awareness and adoption of final results. The project is a 3 million demonstration project funded by Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and is led by MTU with UCD, University of Galway and Teagasc as partners.
Website: Under Development
Funder: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Budget: €2,998,959.12
EMBEDED
Waste from Europe’s agrifood industries can be converted into biochar and construction boards, creating long-term carbon sinks and promoting resilient value chains. The EU-funded EMBEDED project aims to highlight alternative business models by converting agrifood industry waste in Europe into biochar and construction boards. It will validate the use of biochar on primary producer plantations and analyse the regional market. The project will combine income from residues (olive pomace and grape marc) with underutilised materials (cork bark and grape stems). Five demonstration pilots will take place in the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. Four will use pyrolysis to produce biochar with a portable unit, while two will evaluate methods for extracting bioactive chemicals. The project’s overall goal is to advance circular bioeconomy and sustainable resource recovery. In Ireland, partners MTU, UCD and Carbery in collaboration with international partners such as EnviroHemp integrated grass biorefining and pyrolysis processes to develop new products which can improve the sustainability of the dairy sector.
Website: https://embeded.eu/
Funder: Horizon Europe
Budget: €6,127,640.00
Farm Zero C
Farm Zero C is a collaboration between BiOrbic, Carbery and others to address the challenge of carbon neutral farming. The project takes a holistic approach, combining a range of technologies and practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the productivity and resilience of the farm. The farm provides an innovative space for climate mitigation technologies and practices to implemented in a real-world environment, resulting a reduction in farm footprint of 27% between 2018 and 2023. Strategies include animal breeding, grassland management, animal rumen and slurry emission abatement, green biorefinery and anaerobic digestion, native feed ingredients, enhanced biodiversity and many more. In addition, the farm supports monitor farms which replicate Farm Zero C strategies onto new farms helping to increase the impact.
Website: https://farmzerocproject.ie/
Funder: Research Ireland and various sources
Budget: >€3,000,000.00
Biorefinery Glas
Biorefinery Glas was led by MTU (formerly IT Tralee) in a collaboration with Carbery, UCD, Grassa and Barryroe Cooperative. The pioneering grass biorefinery project was funded from 2018-2021 as a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) Operational Group by Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020. Biorefinery Glas was a first demonstration of small-scale biorefinery in Ireland, supporting development of new business models and farmer diversification into the circular bioeconomy. The project implemented a mobile grass biorefinery in different farms across the west Cork area producing feeds for cows and pigs along with higher value products, energy and fertiliser which we subsequently tested and validated in trials. The project paved the way for future grass biorefinery developments in Ireland by validating the potential for further development and its ability to bring socio-economic and environmental benefits to rural communities.
Website: https://biorefineryglas.eu/
Funder: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine,
Budget: €940,000.00
BIO4AFRICA
MTU were partner on the EU-Africa collaborative demonstration project Bio4Africa. As Africa will need to feed 2 billion people by 2050, the continent’s bioeconomy must play a leading role in safeguarding food security. The EU-funded BIO4AFRICA project focused on addressing this challenge, facilitating the growth of the bioeconomy in rural Africa by developing circular biobased solutions and value chains to encourage the use of local resources and diversify the income of farmers. The initiative focused on transferring simple, small-scale and robust biobased technologies adapted to local biomass, needs and contexts. The goal was to empower local farmers to sustainably produce a variety of higher-value biobased products and energy, thereby significantly improving the environmental, economic and social performance of their forage and agri-food systems. In BIO4AFRICA MTU collaborated with Grassa and partners in Africa to support validation of bio-based technologies, including green biorefineries in Uganda and Ghana.
Website: https://www.bio4africa.eu/
Funder: Horizon Europe
Budget: €8,999,693.75
For more information contact james.gaffey@mtu.ie
