Dawn Technology™

Imagine a world where materials are no longer made from fossil resources.

Dawn Technology™ enables the conversion from agricultural and forestry residues to high value chemicals and materials. Biorefining is the sustainable way of the future.

The future of biorefining

The Avantium Dawn Technology™ is a proprietary and innovative process converting non-food plant-based feedstock into industrial sugars and lignin. This means that waste or residual material, such as the branches and bark from forestry and corn stover, and bagasse from the growing of corn and cane sugar, can now be converted to higher value industrial sugars. Avantium sees industrial sugars from the Dawn Technology™ as an imperative of a successful future bioeconomy.

Industrial sugar, such as glucose, is a core building block for many bio-based products and is increasingly important in the transition towards a circular economy. All materials made from petroleum today, such as bottles, polyester clothing and carpets, can be replaced with materials made from industrial sugars.

This would reduce our reliance on petroleum, mitigate CO2 emissions and help tackle climate change. Glucose can be converted into various plant-based chemicals such as plant-MEG, FDCA, lactic acid and antibiotics.

Lignin is the compound that is left once the sugars have been taken out of the original feedstock. It is up to 40% more efficient for energy generation than the original starting material used in the process. Energy generation is currently the predominant application for lignin. Additional higher value applications such as bio-asphalt are being developed.

Avantium launched Dawn Technology™ in July 2018, with the opening of our pilot bio-refinery in Delfzijl, the Netherlands. Since opening, Avantium has continued to run the Dawn Technology™ pilot biorefinery with a focus on operational excellence. The technology is supported by a consortium consisting of Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel), energy company RWE, the Dutch Forestry Agency (Staatsbosbeheer) and Chemport Europe. Each consortium member brings specific expertise.

Dawn Technology™ is complementary to both the YXY® and the RAY technologies in Avantium’s portfolio, as these both begin with the conversion of industrial sugars.

The Dawn technology™ pilot bio-refinery is supported by grants from the Regionaal Investeringsfonds Groningen (RIG), TKI-BBE, by the Bio-Based Joint Undertaking (BBI-JU) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation; by a subsidy from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program for coordinating the Industry Consortium VEHICLE; and by a SPIRE grant, part of Horizon 2020, for participating and coordinating the IMPRESS consortium.

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