1 – The Norwegian Forest Owner’s Federation (NFOF) – Coordinator (Norway)

The Norwegian Forest Owner’s Federation (www.skog.no) organises 38.000 private forest owners, almost exclusively SMEs. The co-operation is an economic organization involved with marketing round wood and other forest products and working for technical progress among its members. One of their principal tasks is to provide services to 8 local co-operative societies that sell lumber for the organizations members representing 85% of forestry production in Norway. The NFOF centrally takes care of forestry policy, public information and defends and develops private property rights. The NFOF also provides market information and coordinates Research and Development, and are active in several bio-fuel projects. NFOF also has ownership in several bio-energy companies, suppliers of heat, pellet plants and chip stations, and has alliance with other major actors on the energy market. They supply most of the volume of chips in Norway to small and large bio-energy plants. 

2 – Confédération Européenne des Propriétaires Forestry’s (CEPF)(EU)

The Confederation of European Forest Owners (www.cepf-eu.org) is the only umbrella organization of national forest owner organizations in the European Union. CEPF policy serves the interests of the approximately 16 million forest owners who own around 60% of the forest area of the European Union. The CEPF organise family forest owners from 21 EU states and Norway and Switzerland.  The organisation was founded in 1996 as a successor organisation to the Central Committee of Forest Owners in the European Economic Community. It is the task of CEPF to represent the interests of these forest owners in Europe vis-à-vis the institutions of the European Union. CEPF’s main objective is to foster reliable political framework conditions that assist and strengthen national forest owners’ organisations in Europe to maintain and enhance an economical viable, social beneficial, cultural valuable and ecological responsible sustainable forest management.

3 – Estonian Private forest Union (EPFU)(Estonia)

The Estonian Private Forest Union (EPFU) (www.eramets.ee ) is an umbrella organisation for the Estonian private forest owner associations based in Tallinn, Estonia. EPFU is a non-for profit organisation. EPFU represents 42 private forest owner associations and is protecting the rights of forest owners on a political arena in policy and legislative processes. Communication is an important issue for the EPFU. Also private forest owner associations spread information and advice to private forest owners. EPFU is engaged in international co-operation and is a member of CEPF, IFFA and ELO. Estonia has rich unused forest resources for example on the islands and in smaller amounts all over Estonia due to scattered ownership patterns. In case the project ends up as expected, Estonian forest owners would face a lucrative possibility to start managing so far unused resources. As private forestry lacks incentives so far, the state of the forest could improve significantly.

4 – Confederación de Organisaciones de Selvicultores de Espana (COSE)(Spain)

The Confederation of Spanish Forest Owners (www.selvicultor.es) was founded in 1992 by the existing regional forest owners’ associations to join the European forest owners association and assure representation in Brussels. COSE has been working intensively in structuring the forest sector in general and the forest owners in particular, and in increasing an exchange of information and experience. The COSE campaigned for substantial improvements in the Spanish forest policy (taxation, forest law, subsidies, establishment of a legal status for forest owners etc). Important work has been achieved by the COSE in order to increase awareness in the environmental importance of forests in Spanish society.

5 – Scandinavian Biofuel Company AS (SBC)(Norway)

Scandinavian Biofuel Company AS – SBC2 - (http://www.sbiofuel.com) develops and supplies integrated microwave assisted pyrolysis production systems for the use of production of energy. The targeted feedstock are waste products; plastics, car tires, sludge and sewage, waste wood and agricultural byproducts etc. that otherwise would be left to decompose or to be burned. SBC2 employ a unique and patented microwave assisted pyrolysis technology design, which is highly energy efficient and reliable for sustainable production. Furthermore, SBC2 has strategic partnerships for among others system design improvements and energy optimization; and design of distill columns and separation equipment for sustainable end products solutions.

6 – Thermya SA (Thermya)(France)

Thermya SA (www.thermya.com) is an engineering company dedicated to the design, development and building of plants to produce Carbon and energy from the “distillation” of organic solids. Thermya offers innovative and environmentally-friendly alternatives for the recovery or recycling of wood, viscose, bagasse, chicken litter, etc. It started at the end of 2002, when it acquired the CHARTHERM^TM technology and the “industrial pilot plant” located near Bordeaux. The CHARTHERM^TM process can be used to recycle all types of wood waste, regardless of its degree of toxicity or cleanliness. Thereafter, the CARBSTYL^TM process was developed with a view to improving the production of the Carbon produced during the CHARTHERM^TM process, which has very specific properties and, consequently, great potential. Thermya has a highly qualified team of technologists, engineers, and scientists and an architect, as well as 750 m² of offices and workshops located on the outskirts of Bordeaux, at Villenave d' Ornon.

7 – Muegge Electronic Gmbh (Muegge)(Germany)

Muegge Electronic Gmbh (www.muegge.de) is one of the European market leaders within industrial microwave solutions, and providing microwave generators for industrial use. Some of the applications are heating and drying, sterilisation, vulcanization and sintering for rubber, herbs, wood, solvents, photo resist and/or ceramics. They combine optimum system, plant and processing technology by incorporating the scientific and technical skills of every kind of partner to form a credible umbrella concept. Every significant stage of development, from giving advice, planning and development, through to realising the finished product take place in-house.

8 – G.S.D. S.r.l (GSD) (Italy)

GSD is a test and development laboratory providing services in the fields of electric, magnetic, thermal, and optical measurements since 1995.  Their expertise range from low frequencies (RF) to infra-red and they can facilitate time resolved measurements down to 1 ms. GSD has also electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) laboratories and experiences, bringing knowledge in the reduction or elimination of electromagnetic interferences (EMI).

Role in the project: They will be participating in the development and evaluation of temperature measurements and control system for the plant (WP3). They will also contribute to WP5, WP6, WP8 and WP9.

9 – PYMETAL CANTABRIA(Pymetal)(Spain)

Pymetal Cantabria (www.pymetal.es) is a Spanish enterprise association in the metal sector with more than 30 years and more than 1,700 SME member companies employing more than 32,000 employees in all of the sub sectors of metal industries, commercialization of Metal, Automation, Installers and Plumbing, Gas, Heating, Electricity, Telecommunications, Air conditioning, Refrigeration, Security systems and Alternative Energies. They have experience in system and tool implementation of SMEs business development, knowledge transference intra and inter-sectorial and support and circulation of projects that can solve the problems the sector from social- economic changes. Pymetal is strongly promoting the use of biofuel within its member enterprises and has conducted several projects with the national and Cantabrian environmental council in order to promote its use.

10 – Nor-Tek Teknologisenter AS (Nor-Tek)(Norway)

Nor-Tek Teknologisenter (www.nor-tek.no) is based in Oslo and is part of a not for profit, pan-European network of 15 research institutes and knowledge transfer centres.  Each has a specific field of expertise and each is focused on a specific national or regional industry community. With access to over 500 researchers, scientists and engineers, Nor-Tek’s multi-disciplinary teams deliver R&D to industry in Norway in the technological fields of clean manufacturing and recycling process development, microwave heating and pyrolysis, analogue and digital electronics, energy harvesting generators, materials and surface chemistry, biofuels and bio-chemistry. Their environmental technologists, industrial and bio-chemists, physicists, electronics and micro-electronics engineers, have successfully delivered and managed more than 250 national and European collaborative R&D projects over the last decade.

11 – C.G.S. di Coluccia Michele & C. sas (CGS)(Italy)

C.G.S. di Coluccia Michele & C. sas (www.cgsgroup.it) is an Italian R&D organisation that has worked for over fifteen years in the fields of applied research, industrial consulting and civil engineering. During those years the company has worked as project coordinators and RTD Performer in several national and European projects. It is involved in product, processes and materials innovation for e.g. the industrial, medical and agricultural sector with an SME orientation. The company started with research in fields having mainly energetic contents, and has since then widen it competence to different fields such as environment, industrial plants, purification, recycling, and HW and SW application. They have specialised in development and set up of analysis methods, software, hard ware, instrumentation, and monitoring systems. CGS has experience from projects developing monitoring systems for plants, and has participated in EU Craft projects related to microwaves.

12 – The University of Nottingham – Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering (UNOTT)(UK)

The University of Nottingham (www.nottingham.ac.uk) is a leading international research university. It is a member of the Russell Group, which comprises the UK's top research-led universities and is in the top five UK universities for attracting research funding from industry. The proposed research program will take place within the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, where the facilities, expertise and experience of a number of world-leading research groups can be utilised. The National Centre for Industrial Microwave Processing (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ncimp/) is a recent addition to the Department, and is a joint initiative between the University of Nottingham, the poweRFaraday Partnership and industry, and provides a link between science and engineering by combining fundamental research, testing, development and scale-up of microwave processing systems. The Centre has links with equipment manufacturers, end-users and the many specialist science and engineering disciplines required to enable the industrial implementation of microwave technology. The centre contains laboratory and industrial scale microwave equipment at powers up to 120 kW, and houses a suite of dielectric property measurement facilities capable of measurements across a wide spectrum of temperature and frequency. The activities within NCIMP range from fundamental scientific investigations to scale-up studies and the design and construction of pilot scale microwave processing plant. Previous projects undertaken by NCIMP include the remediation of contaminated drill cuttings, which has successfully delivered a pilot-scale continuous microwave remediation system. NCIMP have also produced 100+ kg/hr pilot-scale systems for the treatment of vermiculite and minerals & ores, and are currently developing microwave applicator concepts for the remediation of hydrocarbon contaminated soils.  Previous pyrolysis work has included the evaluation of microwave technology for the treatment of Biodegradable Municipal Waste, and the pyrolysis of used car tyres. Nottingham is recognised as being one of the leading UK research centres in clean fossil energy with internationally recognised research being conducted in these topics. Much of the research relies on the strong analytical base within the Centre that includes solid state NMR, microscopy, GC-MS, isotope ratio mass spectrometry, TGA-MS and high temperature rheometry.