The Spanish company Ingelia receives the European biomass award EUBIA Award 2015

The Board of Directors of EUBIA ( European Biomass Industry Association , the continental association of the biomass industry) has awarded the EUBIA Award 2015 to the Spanish company Ingelia for its “outstanding” contribution to the development of this sector and its market in Europe.

The presentation of the most prestigious European award in this matter and one of the most relevant, without a doubt, of those awarded to the most outstanding innovations in the world of renewable energies, was carried out during the XXIII EUBCE ( European Biomass Conference & Exhibition ), the large scientific and business fair and congress meeting that took place between June 1 and 4 in Vienna (Austria) and is supported by the European Commission (EC) and institutions such as UNESCO to promote dialogue between the main research centers, the industry and those responsible for the community institutions and Member States that participate in this emerging sector.

In its thirteen editions, this has been the only one in which this recognition goes to a Spanish company and it is also one of the few times that it does so to an SME like Ingelia compared to the large industrial and energy corporations, whose technological developments had monopolized until the moment the attention of this contest: Biochentex (2014, from Italy), Arkema (2013, France), WTS-AB (2012, Sweden); Vattenfal (2011, Germany), E.On (2010, Germany), Smack (2009, Germany) or Ford (2007, USA).

In recent years, the Valencian company has implemented HTC (hydrothermal carbonization) technology, a patented process that allows overcoming the usual humidity problems of organic agri-food, forestry or urban waste to valorize almost all types of materials of this type, transforming them into energy products with 30% more calorific value than conventional ones. The sustainability and efficiency of the designed process have been the factors that have led to the International Scientific Advisory Committee-ISAC , the community scientific committee that establishes the EU's priority research projects and to the Joint Research Center (JRC) itself, the scientific center that advises the community executive itself in this regard to focus its attention on Ingelia.

The Valencian company, together with the Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ, integrated into the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the CSIC, was already selected at the end of 2013 for this reason to lead an international consortium in charge of executing the NEWAPP project, encompassed in the VII EU Framework Programme. And this NEWAPP project, which delves into the already known energy uses of the HTC process but also studies other alternatives of an environmental nature (for water treatment, for soil regeneration or as a carbon sequestrant). ) or even other industrialists, also had its space in one of the parallel sessions organized during the XXIII EUBCE , specifically on June 4, in which, among others, the ITQ researcher, Michael Renz or the director of Ingelia herself, Marisa Hernández, reported and valued the progress made by the different centers participating in the macroproject on the treatment and uses of organic matter with some degree of humidity. The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the German Institute TTZ, project partners, and Ingelia's Italian subsidiary, Ingeli-Italia, also participated in the event.