In the Bioproducts Department we develop products and processes that are economically promising and ready for to scale-up to industrial level; our focus is on plant raw materials and by-products of the forest and agricultural industries, and their conversion to value-added products, thus, protecting the environment and benefiting society.

Fundamental knowledge is acquired primarily at the pilot scale. Expertise and equipment are available at laboratory scale as well. We have close interaction with investigators from the University: most notably, collaboration with the Department of Instrumental Analysis (Faculty of Pharmacy), the Natural Products Laboratory (Faculty of Natural and Oceanographic Sciences), and the Forest Products Laboratory (Faculty of Engineering).

Technology development is carried out in a chemical conversion processing room with state-of-the-art technology: various extraction, evaporation, fractional distillation and drying pilot plants, as well as equipment for the manufacture of reconstituted wood panels, among others. These facilities together with the associated engineering capabilities allow us to execute R+D+I projects, provide services to companies and support both international and national research groups in their needs to scale-up processes or carry out demonstration-level projects.

Among the projects executed during the 2015-2016 period, the following are worthy:

New processes of wood and wheat straw delignification and production of polyphenols from pine bark, as well as other compounds from wine industry residues and gymnosperms seeds. The components obtained from these raw materials are intermediates that can be used to generate value-added products.

Regarding lignocellulosic materials, we work on the production and use of cellulose microfibrils (CMF), as well as their use as a reinforcing material in the paper industry. A pilot plant was designed, built and implemented. Another promising product is an insulating material based on fibers of eucalyptus bark.

We use extracts of pine bark to produce natural adhesive resins, thus replacing traditional phenol and formaldehyde components. Although this is a long-standing activity at UDT, our recent efforts are focused on optimizing the curing kinetics to industrial production requirements, by reducing the viscosity of adhesive solutions and improving the moisture resistance of boards. There is done in close collaboration with companies interested in adapting these technologies.

RESEARCH LINES

CONTACT

Dr. Cecilia Fuentealba, Head of Bioproducts Department

c.fuentealba(at)udt.cl / +56 41 266 1805