The development of a process begins in the laboratory. Then all actions, reactions and separations must be "translated" into basic operations, i.e. into apparatus. This is followed by the design of the apparatus, i.e. the material, the size, the type of heating, the temperature range, the type of mounting, etc. are determined.
Once the plant components for a process have been designed and manufactured according to the layout, the entire process is set up as a pilot plant or miniplant, usually in the biorefinery pilot plant. This means that the basic operations, which were developed individually, are combined into one process.
The biorefinery pilot plant is part of the experimental station "unterer Lindenhof" (Video: Der Bioraffinerie-Bauernhof).. In this way, the integration of the biorefinery concepts into a farm, and especially the coupling to the biogas plant, is demonstrated. The pilot plants provide the necessary data basis for scaling up to technical scale. In addition, product samples can be produced that are useful, for example, for a later market launch.
Often, pilot plants serve primarily to convince investors, since the necessary final step is the technical implementation and construction of an industrial plant.
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