Tag Archives: Advanced Foods and Materials Canada

Saskatchewan’s Blue Goose Biorefineries and cellulose at the nanoscale and microscale

Thank you to the reader who put me onto this Saskatchewan-based company that claims to produce nanoscale (sometimes called nanocrystalline cellulose [NCC] or nanocellulose crystals [CNC]) and microscale cellulose in an environmentally friendly fashion. From the Blue Goose Biorefineries’ home page,

BLUE GOOSE BIOREFINERIES INC. TM

Blue Goose Biorefineries Inc. introduces the R3TM (Renewable Residual Refining) technology and process to the Canadian marketplace.  R3TM is the world’s most advanced process and technology for the conversion of  carbon-based biomass into high-value, in-demand market commodities

 Economical, Sustainable, Efficient, Benign

 The Patent-Pending technology and process, together with closely held trade secrets, have created an entirely new, efficient and economically viable perspective on the treatment of biomass for the production of high value-added, sustainable and renewable commodities and energy sources.

 Microcrystalline Cellulose, Nanocrystalline Cellulose, Green Platform Chemicals

 Blue Goose Biorefineries Inc. is a Canadian innovation leader resolving environmental issues and generating economic opportunities through innovative, green, and renewable materials manufactured by our unique process and technology.

There doesn’t seem to be any information about the company’s management team, its products, or its technologies on its website. As well, the Blue Goose website does not host any press releases relating to company developments and/or business deals but there is a July 20, 2012 notice on the Advanced Foods and Materials (AFM) Canada website about a joint project,

Advanced Foods and Materials (AFM) Canada and Blue Goose Biorefineries Inc. (BGB) are pleased to announce they have been awarded a $500,000 grant from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Agricultural Innovation Program. The project will focus on the pre-commercialization and development of biorefining methods for flax and hemp straw in order to produce high value cellulose products, lignin, and green platform chemicals in Saskatchewan. BGB’s core technology is a “green chemistry” based, nano-catalytic biorefining process, Renewable Residuals RefiningTM (R3TM).  The R3TM process fractionates and breaks down the major components in lignocellulosic biomass: lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose. This green technology offers many process advantages over existing biorefining methods including cost, yield, environmental impact, and flexibility. Specifically, the technology offers a very strong industry transforming potential for the production of high value microcrystalline cellulose (MCC), nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), lignin and green platform chemicals from flax and hemp straw.

The process has been proven at the lab bench scale for flax and hemp straw. Through this project, Advanced Foods and Materials Canada will manage institutional research activities and the pilot plant scale-up of the biorefining process. The production of larger quantities of bioproducts for testing, process development and lock-down including design parameters, engineering costs and tuning, will facilitate the development of a demonstration plant for Blue Goose Biorefineries. The impact of this project’s activities will add-value to Canadian hemp, flax and other cereal crops by creating a more efficient and economical source of high-quality MCC, NCC, lignin, and green platform chemicals for food, pharmaceutical, and industrial applications across North America.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s July 18, 2012 news release can be read here.

There is one other piece of information, Dr. Bernard Laarveld of the University of Saskatchewan lists Blue Goose Biorefineries as a current employer on his LinkedIn profile.

http://www.afmcanada.ca/event/BGBAIP