Summary:
A German company with focus on green technology has developed a very efficient and low-cost solution to extract oils and other valuable components. The innovation helps to increase profits from industrial biomass waste streams and biomass materials. Especially food and beverage industry are potential customers, but agrofood companies as well. The SME offers the company including its IPR portfolio for sale under an acquisition agreement.
Description:
The German client is a leading company providing solutions and leading-edge technologies for extraction and separation of industrial biomass waste streams into valuable components.
As part of a strategic realignment, the company and its IPR are for sale.
The IPR protected process technology is based on industrial standard processes and is working as an add-on technology. The extraction works with hexane and other uncritical solvents. Standard hexane extraction is common practice to gain oily components from raw materials and biomass. The equipment is standardized and reasonably priced on the market.
The German client has developed very economically and cost efficient innovative solutions to increase the profit and efficiency benefit of residual materials, e.g. in spent coffee grounds, palm oil residues, orange and citrus peel residues, coconut shells and more. In order to be able to use this extraction, it is only necessary to adapt the improved extraction technology as an element to process parameters and to modify the already existing technique.
The steps will be demonstrated on the example of spent coffee ground:
Basis is that there are large quantities of pure coffee oil in the coffee ground. Initial situation is that extraction material is very fine, the coffee oil is firmly bound in the complex of the substance and the material very tightly pored as well as very moist (residual moisture up to 65%). So far, an essential factor for an economical hexane extraction was the drying of the material down to 10% moisture content. The drying made it uneconomical with the client's technology. To dry materials with residual moisture contents of up to 65% to these values, processes have been developed which were able to extract the entire oil without drying and independently of the residual moisture and despite unfavourable material properties. This means that depending on the sort of coffee beans used about 23-31 % oil content can be extracted from the total dry volume. This can be realized with the innovative technology from the client, which is working with an improved extraction technology via hexane+solvent. The source material can contain 60% of water and more. Nevertheless, no previous drying is necessary to receive the result of oil extraction of about more than 90%, which is very efficient.
Therewith, it is possible to increase the benefit many times over, while at the same time having less operating costs and much better ecological balance. A more confident sale of the extracted products is another positive more result. In addition to current solutions, the technology described has the potential for other oil plants and oily materials to be possible.
As part of a strategic realignment, the company and its IPR portfolio are for sale within the framework of an acquisition agreement.
Type (e.g. company, R&D institution…), field of industry and Role of Partner Sought:
Type: SME, MNE, M&A units
Activity: Agrofood industry, food processing industry, mechanical engineering
Role: The potential partner starts negotiations with an EOI and provides due-dilligance information about his/her company. Afterwards a Non-Disclosure Agreement will be signed. Further negotiations and preparation of acquisition agreement.
IPR Status:
Patents granted
External code:
BODE20210726001
