Skip to content Skip to primary navigation
Contact us
News

TNO, VITO & Green Chem­istry Cam­pus launch Bio­ri­zon » The Way to Aromatics

11.12.2013
Bio­ri­zon’s ambi­tion is to become one of the world’s top cen­ters with­in five years. Cur­rently Bio­ri­zon is attract­ing glob­al lead­ers as well as SME’s in the fields of feed­stock, con­ver­sion, equip­ment and end products to join their Shared Research Cen­ter. ​“Bio­ri­zon’s ini­tial focus will be on the tech­no­logy devel­op­ment for the pro­duc­tion of biobased aro­mat­ics for per­form­ance mater­i­als, chem­ic­als and coat­ings. In time, labor­at­ory exper­i­ments, demo-scale pilot­ing for selec­ted tech­no­lo­gies and an extens­ive know­ledge and pat­ent port­fo­lio of innov­at­ive pro­cess routes and nov­el products will be delivered as res­ults for the par­ti­cip­at­ing companies”,says Flori­an Graichen from VITO (IBB net­work mem­ber).

The industry’s need for biobased aromatics

Aro­mat­ics rep­res­ent a sig­ni­fic­ant share of our today’s chem­ic­al build­ing blocks, not only in order to cre­ate fuel com­pon­ents, base chem­ic­als or poly­mers, but also to cre­ate poly­mer addit­ives, col­or­ants, fla­vors and fra­grances. The mar­ket for aro­mat­ics is grow­ing 5 to 10% annu­ally. Cur­rently vir­tu­ally all aro­mat­ic build­ing blocks are made from fossil oil that will become scarce. Hence, it is import­ant to devel­op tech­no­logy to replace the cur­rent aro­mat­ic pet­ro­chem­ic­al based build­ing blocks by altern­at­ive feed­stock. Shale gas and shale oil are rap­idly emer­ging as a new feed­stock, and they pro­duce no aro­mat­ic com­pounds con­trary to fossil oil and naphta. Giv­en the glob­al chal­lenges that soci­ety is facing with respect to CO2 emis­sions, pol­lu­tion, glob­al warm­ing and short­age of suit­able fossil oil reserves, new biobased pro­duc­tion routes need to be real­ized urgently to address the eco­lo­gic­al and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges that human­ity and industry are facing. Bio­ri­zon sup­ports the industry by devel­op­ing new tech­no­lo­gies for aro­mat­ics from bio-based feed­stock.

Ini­ti­at­ors: TNO, VITO & Green Chem­istry Campus

For the ini­ti­at­ors − TNO, VITO and the Green Chem­istry Cam­pus − Bio­ri­zon is a unique oppor­tun­ity to accel­er­ate the innov­a­tion required and, in doing so, con­trib­ute to the real­iz­a­tion of the biobased eco­nomy as well as to the suc­cess of the industry. It also fits in per­fectly with the COCI status that VNCI has awar­ded the Green Chem­istry Cam­pus: Cen­ter for Open Chem­ic­al Innov­a­tion. TNO and VITO, both of whom have years of exper­i­ence with this form of col­lab­or­a­tion, are execut­ing the research in close cooper­a­tion with the par­ti­cip­at­ing com­pan­ies. TNO and VITO will deploy their know­ledge and exper­i­ence in the field of feed­stock, biotech, chem­istry, pro­cess tech­no­logy and applic­a­tions.

Cross-bor­der: from Biobased Delta via Biobase-Europe to ARRR

Bio­ri­zon is not con­fined with­in the bor­ders of Bel­gi­um or the Neth­er­lands. Willem Seder­el, Dir­ect­or of Biobased Delta in which Bio­ri­zon is estab­lished: ​“Biobased Delta is cur­rently the focus point: the col­lab­or­a­tion of busi­nesses, author­it­ies and know­ledge insti­tutes in the South­w­est-Neth­er­lands. Under the slo­gan ​‘Agro meets Chem­istry’ we are work­ing on upgrad­ing agro-resid­uals in bio-based innov­a­tions. Biobase-Europe (IBB net­work mem­ber, Ghent-Terneuzen) is also involved and, over time, we want to bundle and cluster activ­it­ies with­in the largest chem­ic­al cluster in the world, ARRR (Ant­werp-Rot­ter­dam-Rhein-Ruhr). This fits in per­fectly with European policy that aims to strengthen these regions accord­ing to the prin­cip­al of smart spe­cial­iz­a­tion”. To assure the achieve­ment of Bio­ri­zon’s goal — com­mer­cial­iz­a­tion of bio-aro­mat­ics busi­ness on the short, medi­um and long-term — Bio­ri­zon developed a roadmap, which will be fur­ther developed by the par­ti­cip­at­ing indus­tri­al organ­iz­a­tions. The ini­tial roadmap was estab­lished with a con­tri­bu­tion from REAP (Region­al Eco­nom­ic Action Pro­gram) and from the Province of North-Bra­bant. For more inform­a­tion on Bio­ri­zon please con­tact Wiebe Logghe via +31 (0)6 30 96 36 95 or w.logghe(at)greenchemistrycampus.com.

About Bio­ri­zon

Bio­ri­zon, pre­vi­ously known as ​‘Shared Research Cen­ter Biobased Aro­mat­ics’, is a cross-bor­der ini­ti­at­ive between TNO, VITO and the Green Chem­istry Cam­pus and is part of Biobased Delta. Bio­ri­zon focuses on the tech­no­logy devel­op­ment for the pro­duc­tion of biobased aro­mat­ics for per­form­ance mater­i­als, chem­ic­als & coat­ings. The ambi­tion is to become one of the world’s top cen­ters in this field with­in five years. http://​www​.bio​ri​zon​.eu Source: Biorizon
All news