Borregaard, a Norwegian biorefinery, has received funding of NOK 7.6 million for a project involving the extraction of bioactive substances from spruce.

The objective is to use by-products from wood processing to develop high-value products, processes and applications based on bark, chips and twigs from spruce. Applications include animal feed, shrimp farming and bacterial inhibitors in personal care products, biological pesticides and pharmaceutical industry.

“Today, Borregaard uses about 90 percent of logs for its products. If we succeed with this project, an even larger proportion of logs will be used for the production of valuable products that the world needs,” said Per A. Sørlie, CEO of Borregaard.

The study is funded by the BIA program of the Research Council of Norway, which is allocating a total of NOK 475 million to 49 innovative projects in Norwegian industries.