BEST – Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH is the leading Austrian Institute in pre-competitive research in the field of biomass to energy and biomass to goods conversion. We bundle scientific and industrial excellence of the Austrian biobased and renewable industry in order to deliver innovations for the sustainable biobased economy and for future energy systems. We carry out R&D on biomass combustion, gasification and fermentation technologies, and on the system integration of technologies to serve a sustainable biobased economy and future energy systems.

BEST – Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH deals with both conventional and advanced biofuels for transport. In the field of conventional biofuels, we focus on vegetable oil, biodiesel and bioethanol production technologies and product quality and provide basic concepts. In addition, innovative feedstock such as Jatropha, Algae and waste derived feedstock as well as availability of biomass resources, sustainability, life cycle assessment and certification is of particular interest. In the field of advanced biofuels such as drop-in biofuels (including biofuels for aviation) we focus on a number of promising technologies. One of these is the conversion of the product gas from biomass gasification to synthesized biofuels. BEST – Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH is continuously working on the development and market implementation of FT synthesis for the production of FT fuels. Besides FT synthesis, synthetic natural gas, bio-hydrogen and mixed alcohols are other options which are investigated and developed.

Besides the utilization of product gas obtained by gasification, the upgrading of biogas from fermentative processes is a promising alternative. BEST – Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH has already successfully demonstrated upgrading processes with the use of membranes within a side stream in a large-scale biogas plant. The optimization of biogas production and plant efficiency in industrial scale are other activities.

BEST – Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH is actively involved in national and international networks for the deployment of biofuels. We participate in the international networks IEA Bioenergy Task 39 (Commercializing 1st- and 2nd-Generation Liquid Biofuels from Biomass), Task 37 (Energy from Biogas and Landfill Gas), and Task 44 (Flexible Bioenergy and System Integration). Furthermore we participate in the European Technology and Innovation Platform Bioenergy and hold the secretariat of the Advanced Motor Fuels Technology Collaboration Programme of the IEA. These participations allow us to obtain information on research projects and their results, on the production and the use of biofuels and on the political framework in other countries. Beside other activities, we have developed and regularly update a data base on advanced biofuels pilot and demonstration plants (http://demoplants.best-research.eu), which impressively shows the worldwide efforts to develop renewable bio-based transport fuels.