At the R&D department contract research is carried out and new technologies are developed. Working closely together with industrial partners these technologies are scaled-up to (semi-)commercial scale production units.

R&D work is aimed at developing marketable technologies for the production of heat, power, fuels and chemicals from biomass. The dedicated R&D laboratory offers a range of experimental equipment that is available for biomass combustion, gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion contract research, including test rigs, gas cleaning reactors, a flame tunnel, and test engines.

The current R&D activities include:

• Bio-oil production: development of a fast pyrolysis process for the production of a liquid fuel (bio-oil) from biomass and bio-waste.
• Bio-oil applications: combustion in boilers for industrial and district heat generation and in engines for power, gasification of bio-oil for the production of synthetic gas or hydrogen, and production of liquid smoke.
• Fluid bed gasification; testing of various feedstock materials
• Two-step catalytic gasification: tar-free producer gas production
• Producer gas cleaning: application of catalytic or thermal reverse-flow reactors for efficient removal of tar from producer gas.
• Gasification of wet biomass in supercritical water: production of a hydrogen-rich gas.