Our research and development team attended the annual GRACE summit this month, where project partners updated on advances in the bio-economy, with some interesting new uses discussed, including panels for the automotive industry made from Miscanthus.
What is GRACE?
GRACE stands for “GRowing Advanced industrial Crops on marginal lands for biorEfineries”. It’s a cross-European project that includes over 20 different organisations, both in academia and industry, identifying commercial uses for Miscanthus and Hemp.
Terravesta’s role in GRACE has been very significant, particularly in the beginning. We’ve been supplying planting materials in multiple locations in Europe (e.g. UK, Poland, Germany, Italy and Croatia etc). We have also provided planting material in the UK, allowing our study to be extended to commercial scale.
Find out more about GRACE here.
New uses for Miscanthus
Many of the partners are involved with the development of new sustainable end-uses for Miscanthus and Hemp and we had updates from some of the companies who are testing plant-based fibre for panels for use in the automotive industry – dashboards specifically, and for use as the basis for ‘eco concrete’, as well as paper-based alternatives and sound absorption panels in big buildings where echoes aren’t wanted.
Terravesta’s update
Our R&D manager, Jason Kam, updated on the progress of our commercial scale trials for the new varieties being developed.
We also discussed the new ‘carbon Life Cycle Analysis’ (LCA) which has just been published in a peer reviewed journal, and which we provided data for. You can view the carbon LCA here.
