BBI launches €200 million EU call for bioeconomy at Brussels Info Day

 Today (26 June) the second call for proposals for Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) were announced at their Info Day in Brussels and the results of the first call were confirmed with the signing of the first 10 grant agreements. 

Europe’s biobased economy received a major boost with the announcement of the new €200 million+ call for proposals on June 26 at the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) in Brussels. The latest call for proposals follows the July 2014 launch of the BBI JU, a €3.7 billion public-private partnership aimed at supporting the development of Europe’s emerging bioeconomy.

The 2015 call for proposals were formally announced at the Info Day - an information and awareness event gathering together research and innovation programme managers and experts from across Europe.

The 2015 call is aimed at attracting project proposals that can fill the technological gaps within specific value chains in the bioeconomy, or actions addressing the whole value chain from feedstock sourcing to the market applications. Demonstration actions should include building a demo-scale production facility in Europe, while flagship actions should support the first application in the market of a proven innovation that has not yet deployed. Details of the second call can be found here.

The packed Info Day meeting (above) at the European Commission’s Borschette Centre in Brussels was opened by BBI JU’s Interim Executive Director, Barend Verachtert. He hailed the new call for proposals as a landmark for Europe in its progress towards a fully sustainable bioeconomy. “Today is an important day for the BBI JU,” said Verachtert. “It shows that we are on the way to building a strong bioeconomy in Europe.”

Bioeconomy, circular economy
The new call comes just two weeks after G7 leaders meeting in Germany agreed to end all fossil fuel use by the end of the century and the day after a major conference meeting in Brussels highlighted the role of sustainable chemistry and biotechnology in achieving the aims of the circular economy.

Verachtert said that the new call reflects Europe’s clear commitment to develop cleaner ways to exploit its natural resources. “The bio-based industrial sector will significantly reduce Europe’s dependency on fossil-based products, help the European Union meet climate change targets, and lead to greener and more environmentally-friendly growth,” he said.

Moreover, Verachtert pointed out the social and economic effects of the BBI JU proposals, in particular their focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). “These proposals can go a long way to help SMEs produce the innovative bio-based products needed to lift Europe’s sustainable economy,” he said. “With the bioeconomy now at the heart of the EU’s investment agenda, the proposals underline a joint will to build new value chains between sectors like agro-food, chemicals and energy,” he added.

Following presentations on the BBI and the European biobased industries and Horizon 2020 and a full briefing on all aspects of the 2nd call in the morning, the afternoon of the Info Day was devoted to networking and the initial steps towards consortium building and proposal preparation.

New BBI JU projects
The second round announcement comes days after the BBI JU signed its first 10 grant agreements. The BBI JU 2014 call for proposals included support for the development of biorefining technologies to sustainably transform renewable natural resources into biobased products, materials and fuels.
The call resulted in the submission of 38 proposals, of which 10 received grants. The total BBI JU contribution for these 10 projects is almost €50 million with an additional industry contribution of over € 70 million.

Seven of the projects are Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) aimed at replacing fossil-based materials with biobased materials. The seven projects are:

• US4GREENCHEM - the pre-treatment of lignocellulosic or plant dry matter feedstock
• PROVIDES - new sustainable pulping technologies
• SmartLi and Greenlight - fibres and polymers from lignin
• CARBOSURF - fermentation processes to produce biosurfactants and specialty carbohydrates
• PROMINENT - extracting protein products from plant residues
• NewFert - nutrient recovery from waste streams and residues

A further three grants are for demonstration and flagship projects aimed at testing technologies. The projects are:

• PULP2VALUE - (DEMO) a biorefinery system for sugar beet pulp and products for detergents, personal care, oil and gas, paints and composites
• ValChem -  (DEMO) techno-economic viability tests on the production of chemicals from wood
• FIRST2RUN - (FLAGSHIP) exploiting underutilised oil crops to extract vegetable oils

The links will take you to the project's CORDIS Horizon 2020 project webpage if it exists. A Commission background paper on the projects is available here.

About the BBI JU
The BBI JU is a public-private partnership (PPP), part of the EU’s plan to move its economy to a post-petroleum era. It is expected to help make the EU’s economy more resource-efficient and sustainable, while supporting growth and employment. €3.7 billion will fund the BBI JU between 2014 and 2024, with €975 million coming from the European Commission and €2.7 billion from its private partner, the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC).

The EU’s bioeconomy currently has an annual turnover of around €2 trillion and employs more than 22 million people.

BIO-TIC’s 10 Recommendations to enable € 50 billion EU Bioeconomy

Today (23 June), the BIO-TIC project has launched its final roadmap report for tackling barriers to realising the full potential of industrial biotechnology in Europe. The report is entitled ‘The bioeconomy enabled - A roadmap to a thriving industrial biotechnology sector in Europe’ and was introduced at the project’s high level policy conference “From bugs to business: Unlocking the Bioeconomy in Europe” that took at the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in Brussels. The conference brought together industry, academia, policy makers, innovation agencies and other bioeconomy stakeholders to discuss the actions needed to stimulate the development of industrial biotechnology in Europe. 

The BIO-TIC report highlights that the EU market for industrial biotechnology-derived products is expected to increase from € 28 billion in 2013 to € 50 billion in 2030. This growth will be largely driven by replacement of fossil carbon materials, reflecting Europe’s desire to develop more sustainable and resource-efficient products and processes.

However, in spite of this market growth, significant hurdles remain and hamper the full development of industrial biotechnology in Europe. For example, the principal barrier to fully exploiting industrial biotechnology opportunities in Europe relates to product cost-competitiveness, both compared to fossil alternatives and to equivalent products sourced from elsewhere in the world.

Recommendations
To tackle this and other hurdles, and to ensure that most of this potential is realised in Europe, the BIO-TIC roadmap outlines ten pragmatic recommendations for action. Presenting the main findings of the report Antoine Peeters of EuropaBio (below) said that: "The projected market of up to € 50 billion meant that there were many opportunities for competitive European positions - it was now up to you [the European bioeconomy stakeholders] to make it happen!"

The ten main recommendations in the report are to:

• Improve opportunities for feedstock producers within the bioeconomy; 
• Investigate the scope for using novel biomass; 
• Develop a workforce which can maintain Europe’s competitiveness in industrial biotechnology; 
• Introduce a long-term, stable and transparent policy and incentive framework to promote the bioeconomy; 
• Improve public perception and awareness of industrial biotechnology and biobased products; 
• Identify, leverage and build upon EU capabilities for pilot and demonstration facilities; 
• Promote the use of co-products; 
• Improve the bioconversion and downstream processing steps; 
• Improve access to financing for large scale biorefinery projects; 
• Develop stronger relationships between conventional and non-conventional players in the value chain. 

Nathalie Moll, Secretary General of EuropaBio, which coordinated the project, said: “We are thrilled to see BIO-TIC come to fruition. The roadmap represents a comprehensive summary of expertise and insight from across the Member States. In 10 recommendations, it highlights ways of capturing the huge potential for environmental, societal and economic solutions that this cutting-edge technology offers in the development of a more competitive, circular EU bioeconomy.”

The roadmap
‘The Bioeconomy Enabled: A Roadmap to a Thriving Industrial Biotechnology Sector in Europe’ roadmap is a key deliverable of the EU funded BIO-TIC project. The results are based on an extensive literature review, complemented with over 80 expert interviews and 13 stakeholder workshops organised across Europe in 2013 and 2014. It is based on three detailed reports covering market potential, research and development and regulatory/policy issues, available separately as appendices to the main document. All BIO-TIC roadmaps can be downloaded from the BIO-TIC web portal.

The ‘From bugs to business: Unlocking the Bioeconomy in Europe’ conference was chaired by Professor Patricia Osseweijer of TU Delft and featured keynote speeches by BioAmber, Biobased Delta, Energochemica and Ecover to illustrate the issues and potential of industrial biotechnology in Europe.

Panel debates covered project financing for industrial biotechnology projects and issues around biomass availability. The conference concluded with contributions from MEP Lambert van Nistelrooij and Waldemar Kütt, ‎Head of Unit for BioBased products and Processes at DG Research and Innovation, giving their views from Parliament and the Commission respectively on industrial biotechnology.

Lambert van Nistelrooij highlighted the need to “introduce a long-term, stable and transparent policy and incentive framework to promote the bioeconomy” while Waldemar Kütt said that: “Industrial biotechnology can make a change to enable a future bioeconomy and a future circular economy. BIO-TIC’s ten recommendations will be very valuable making progress in this area.”

The event included an exhibition of industrial biotechnology-related tools (including 3D printing machines) and a range of biobased products (above). Conference delegates were also invited to visit the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant on the morning of 24 June.

About BIO-TIC
The Industrial Biotech Research and Innovation Platforms Centre towards Technological Innovation and Solid Foundations for a Growing Industrial Biotech Sector in Europe (BIO-TIC) project was launched in September 2012 with the vision to establish an overview of the hurdles to biotech innovation and find solutions to accelerate the uptake of industrial biotechnology in Europe. BIO-TIC was a three-year project funded by the FP7 Programme of the European Commission and is operated by 12 partners. These are EuropaBio, Cefic, PNO Consultants, TNO, Dechema, nova Institut, Clever Consult, KTN, IAR, Poyry Management Consulting Oy, Ciaotech and PNO Innovation. The consortium is led by EuropaBio.

More information
For more information, contact Claire Gray Project Co-ordinator for BIO-TIC at EuropaBio or visit the BIO-TIC website.

ACHEMA 2015 - Global Summit of Innovation!

With over 3,800 exhibitors and a huge exhibition space ACHEMA opened on 15 June in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The growing international reputation of Europe’s premier event for the process industries was underlined by the fact that, for the first time, the majority of exhibitors come from outside Germany. With well over 160,000 participants anticipated to attend from 15 - 19 June one focus of interest for SusChem amongst the varied technical programme are three sessions on CO2 utilisation.

ACHEMA is the world forum for chemical engineering and the process industry providing an international platform for new chemical process innovations and technologies. And innovation was the main focus of the first day of ACHEMA. At the opening press conference Prof. Dr. Rainer Diercks, Chairman of the Board of organiser DECHEMA e.V. described ACHEMA as: “the global summit of innovation.” Being interdisciplinary and highly international, ACHEMA is a “melting pot of ideas.” Diercks also pointed out that the significant contribution of chemistry and process engineering to the solution of global challenges such as water supply, food or health is not well-known to the general public. ACHEMA is therefore aiming to increase its activities directed towards engaging with the public on these subjects.

The importance of the chemical industry for overall innovation should be brought much more strongly to the attention of the general public DECHEMA believes. All speakers in the press conference panel warned that Europe could fall back as a place for innovation if the political and societal framework was not improved.

Innovation in terms of CO2 utilisation technology is of growing interest to SusChem and the chemical industry generally. At ACHEMA DECHEMA has organised a special stand on the German #useCO2 funding programme in the Exhibition area in  Hall 9.2, stand E46 (link text in German). If you are at ACHEMA go visit!

In addition two ACHEMA conference sessions and a workshop are of direct interest in this field.

Energy and alternatives
Energy, water and feedstock are essential for any chemical or biotechnology conversion. As these resources become scarcer, new methods for efficient use are being introduced. This includes energy efficient transformations and operations as well as the temporary storage of energy in the form of electricity or heat. Renewable energy resources that produce electricity depending on weather conditions rather than in response to demand may create a temporary and regional surplus of energy. This can be usefully employed for the production of basic chemicals as well as for conversion of unconventional feedstock such as CO2.

The ‘Power to chemicals’ conference session majors on this latter theme and takes place on the morning of Thursday, 18 June from 10:30. The session will describe  a number of interesting processes in this field including the use of ammonia as a storage medium for fluctuating (renewable) energy sources; synthetic fuels from a sustainable pathway; storage of power as chemicals using gasification plants; tailored foams as catalyst support for highly exothermic processes; and comparison of biological and catalytic methanation for power-to-gas applications.

You can find more information, including downloadable abstracts of all the presentations, here.

On the following morning (19 June) a dedicated session on Industrial carbon dioxide utilisation covers topics including: Materials for the 21st century - can carbon come from CO2?; CO2-based polyurethanes on the way to commercial scale (the Bayer DREAM process); an evaluation of the economic and environmental potentials of using CO2 in chemical processes; Combinatorial screening of catalyst materials for electrochemical CO2 reduction; and Environmentally sustainable syngas production from carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

Again you can find more information, including downloadable abstracts of all the presentations, here.

SCOT workshop
Also on the afternoon of 18 June from 15:00 the EU FP7 project Smart CO2 Utilisation (SCOT) is organising a workshop at ACHEMA entitled: ‘PtX: A new paradigm for energy and gas networks?’

The event will present the draft of the SCOT Project’s Vision for Power to Gas and Power to Liquids and open a discussion on  the potential of these technologies in Europe.
The workshop will address the following questions:

• In which fields will PtX provide added value?
• What needs to happen for the technologies to be viable (policy, technical progress, etc)?
• What impact will PtX have on electricity and gas network operators and industries in Europe?

To guide the discussion, three high-level experts will lead the exchanges with the audience that will consist of people from industry, research institutes as well as policy makers.

A joint Cefic-European Commission Workshop on the Chemistry and Processes of CO2 Utilisation was recently held and the outcomes will be published soon.

Relive #SusChem2015!

SusChem's 2015 Stakeholder event was a great success! With new exciting and interactive elements, the SusChem community put some serious work into working up future ideas for SusChem inspired projects across our portfolio of priority research and innovation challenges. The outcomes from the two-day event will move the implementation of SusChem's Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA) forward. As well as generating a buzz in the conference itself #SusChem2015 made a big impact in the virtual world too. With tweeted photos and short videos the event was a #trending topic on both 8 and 9 June!  

Proceedings were led by SusChem chairman Klaus Sommer (above) with contributions from academia, industry and European Commission officials. There was also a clear focus on SMEs and facilitating their access to European research and innovation programmes and funding. To coincide with #SusChem2015, the technology platform published a new SME Funding Guide and the event ended with a very stimulating showcase involving 19 of Europe's most innovative SMEs 'pitching' their ideas and expertise to a panel of industry experts.

Breakout sessions
The first day of #SusChem2015 focused on the implementation of priorities from the the new SusChem SIRA in six parallel breakout sessions.

Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials was led by Philippe Krafft of Solvay (above) examining a wide range of material and process challenges including industrial symbiosis.

The Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy group chaired by Jens Rieger of BASF who looked at how chemistry and materials for energy storage can enable full integration of renewable energy sources.

ICT and the Chemical Industry was led by Thorsten Potter of Bayer discussing how smart processes and smart materials can deliver improved competitiveness for  the chemical industry in Europe.

The Sustainable and inclusive bioeconomy discussion was orchestrated by Joanna Dupont of EuropaBio covering challenges for chemistry along the full value chain from agriculture and forestry to new markets for platform biobased chemicals

Health, Demographic Change and Well-being was led by Rodney Townsend of the Royal Society of Chemistry focusing on modelling pharmokinetic processes to improve targeted delivery of Active Ingredients.

Finally Smart, Green and Integrated Transport chaired by Peter Nagler of Evonik debated the chemical and material challenges of clean and green mobility.

The outcomes of the breakout sessions were discussed on the second day of  #SusChem2015 in an extended panel discussion and audience Q&A.

Commission contributions
The European Commission were active across two days with word of encouragement and insights on future plans for European collaborative research and innovation. The opening plenary of the event was given by Rudolf Strohmeier, Deputy Director General of DG Research and Innovation (below).

He acknowledged SusChem's role in driving forward the research and innovation agenda in Europe and had particular praise for the SusChem-inspired SPIRE PPP. He also stated that the Commission was fully aware that if the regulatory framework conditions in Europe did not improve then industry would not invest and asked the SusChem community to contribute to the ongoing consultation on this topic in the context of the circular economy and more generally. He also highlighted a recent joint workshop on CO2 conversion technology. This could be a first step towards a possible project of Common European Interest and a 'lighthouse example' for circular economy thinking.

On the second day further insights on how the Horizon 2020 programme had proceeded so far in the 2014 and 2015 calls was given by Soren Bowadt from DG R&I (above).

Christos Tokamanis from DG R&I described Commission work in the area of materials technologies and the major societal challenges.

The Open Innovation SME Workshop was prefaced with a presentation by Catherine Eginard from the Commission's DG GROW describing initiatives for SMEs including the work of the Executive Agency for Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (EASME).

Another important contribution was the final plenary presentation on 9 June: a joint presentation on the SusChem-inspired Horizon 2020 PPPs with Dirk Carrez of the Biobased Industries Consortium (above, left) and Loredana Ghinea of SPIRE.

CRM_InnoNet - Final Newsletter, Video and Conference

The end is nigh! SusChem's FP7 CRM_InnoNet project is approaching its final few days of activity and has just published its tenth and final Issue newsletter. This final issue covers the project's final high level conference (see below), announces the project's new video and much more! 

As well as highlighting the “SUBSTITUTION means EVOLUTION” conference on 17 June 2015 the newsletter features the project's new video addressing the importance of substitution of CRMs for Europe’s economic growth and competitiveness. The video is embedded below.

Also covered are a short summary and link to the project‘s five roadmaps and summary report, a  summary of the CRM policy workshop that took place on 3 March (with links to all the presentations given), a close-up article on the UK's Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) and plenty of links to other upcoming events!

Final act
There is still time to register for CRM_InnoNet's final high level conference called 'SUBSTITUTION means EVOLUTION' taking place on 17 June in Brussels. This free conference will be your one-stop shop to find out all you need to know about substitution of CRMs in Europe.

At the event you will:

• Learn about the opportunities provided by substitution in terms of CRMs and how it can solve technological challenges.
• Witness the state of play of CRM substitution activities in Europe with keynote speeches from companies and government bodies.
• Meet up with key EU industrial sectors in the area of substitution.
• Engage in debates to implement recommendations towards a European circular economy.
• Discuss with policy makers, industrial players, entrepreneurs and academia during the networking cocktail.
• Become part of the continuing European CRM Innovation Network and meet potential partners for substitution projects in Horizon 2020.

At the conference you will also be able to explore applications of substitution in the exhibition space! If you wish to bring your own products and have your own stand contact the conference organisers now! The final agenda is shown below.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Eva Kailil, MEP - first STOA vice-chair
• Iñigo Charola, Graphenea
• Dario della Sala, ENEA, Italian Agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development
• Thomas Lograsso, Critical Materials Institute, USA
• Holger Gruenewald, Juelich Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH
• Eberhard Gschwindt, European Investment Bank (EIB)
• Christos Tokamanis, European Commission

Find out more on the CRM_InnoNet website and you can register via this link. See you there!

More on CRM_InnoNet
The CRM_InnoNet Innovation Network is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) funded under FP7 that is creating an integrated community to drive innovation in the field of critical raw material substitution for the benefit of EU industry. SusChem is a significant supporter of the network.

For more information on CRM_InnoNet and the conference, email the project secretariat at the UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) and you can also follow the project on Twitter.

#SusChem2015 - Sustainable chemistry in action: Driving jobs, growth and investment in Europe

Today (8 June) and tomorrow at its annual Stakeholder event (#SusChem2015) the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry (SusChem) will be discussing how sustainable chemistry can continue to deliver jobs, growth and investment in Europe. Following the publication of the SusChem Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA) delegates at the event in Brussels will focus on the platform’s priorities for the next Horizon 2020 calls and on working to ensure greater involvement from SMEs in SusChem and Horizon 2020 projects and initiatives.

SusChem Chairman Dr. Klaus Sommer said: “We have the new SusChem SIRA which is clearly aligned to European priorities. Our task today is to identify the key issues and technical priorities that we can take forward to maximise the impact of the SusChem SIRA.”

“In FP7 SusChem inspired a portfolio of role model or flagship projects such as the F3 Factory and the Smart Energy Home projects. We need to define SusChem’s flagship projects for the next phase of Horizon 2020,” he continued.

The stakeholder event will feature keynote speeches, breakout sessions and a panel discussion to work on these issues and set SusChem’s work programme for 2016-2017.

Six breakout sessions
The main theme of #SusChem2015 is 'Propelling Sustainable Chemistry to Exciting New Frontiers’. The first day  will focus on the implementation of priorities from the the new SusChem SIRA in six parallel breakout sessions. The session topics show the intimate involvement of sustainable chemistry in almost all aspects of society. The six sessions will cover:

• Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials led by Philippe Krafft of Solvay who will examine how sustainable chemistry can improve Europe’s access to critical raw material, develop the CO2 value chain, reduce solid wastes, make use of low-temperature wastewater, and enable effective industrial symbiosis
• Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy chaired by Jens Rieger of BASF will have an emphasis on chemistry and materials for energy storage with the main challenge being to enable full integration of renewable energy sources into Europe’s power systems. 
• ICT and the Chemical Industry led by Thorsten Potter of Bayer will look at how smart processes and smart materials can deliver improved competitiveness for  the chemical (and wider process) industries in Europe
• Sustainable and inclusive bioeconomy orchestrated by Joanna Dupont of EuropaBio will cover challenges in sustainable and productive agriculture and forestry, adding value to wastes and residues, resource efficiency, using CO2 as a (bio)feedstock, and new markets for platform (biobased) chemicals 
• Health, Demographic Change and Well-being led by Rodney Townsend of the Royal Society of Chemistry will focus on the challenge of  modelling the pharmokinetic processes underlying diseases and ageing to improve targeted delivery of Active Ingredients and to model and design the most effective delivery vehicles including new ideas for flexible, scalable  manufacturing systems
• Smart, Green and Integrated Transport chaired by Peter Nagler of Evonik will examine the chemical and material challenges of clean and green vehicles (especially electric vehicles) and how to reduce energy consumption across transport applications through lightweight materials, vehicle temperature management and the development of ‘greener’ tyres.

Open Innovation for SMEs
A major part of the second day of the #SusChem2015 focuses on SusChem's goal to foster collaboration between larger chemical players and SMEs with an Open Innovation SME workshop. This special event will be followed by a poster session and a Horizon 2020 brokerage session. Participants will experience first-hand the creation of new partnerships as innovative SMEs from across Europe pitch their brilliant ideas and technologies to bigger chemical companies in three technical fields:

• ICT for chemical and biotechnology processes
• Eco-innovation technologies
• Advanced materials and nanotechnologies

Coinciding with #SusChem2015 the platform is publishing a new Guide to Innovation Funding for SMEs in Europe (left). The publication outlines five dedicated SME funding schemes and describes how SusChem can help SMEs get involved with collaborative research and innovation projects.

SusChem’s Network of National Technology Platforms (NTPs) will also present and demonstrate their vital role in the SusChem eco-system by leveraging national government funds, working with SMEs and initiating cross border cooperation.

#SusChem2015 takes place at the Sheraton Rogier Hotel in Brussels, Belgium on 8 and 9 June. The full programme for the event is available here.

Bio Base Europe celebrates 5 years as a Bioeconomy Pioneer!

On Tuesday 16 June the SusChem-inspired Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant will celebrate five years of operation in Ghent, Belgium. And it will also start to prepare for the next stage in its evolution with a ceremony to inaugurate new 15 000 Litre bioreactors tanks.

The Bio Base Europe celebration will start at 14:00 on Tuesday 16 June at the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant in Ghent. For more information on the celebration visit the dedicated website.

Over 350 bioeconomy professionals already decided to join the celebration. The event is free but prior registration is mandatory and the registration deadline in 9 June. Don’t miss the bioeconomy networking event of the year!

Bio Base Europe
Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant is a pilot plant for biobased products and processes. The construction of the plant started in 2008 and by the end of 2010, the first projects were running. In those five years Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant became a European frontrunner with regard to the development of the biobased economy in Europe.

Bio Base Europe is a flexible and diversified pilot plant for developing, scaling-up and the trial production of biobased products and processes. Its aim is to bridge the gap between scientific development and the industrial production of new, innovative, biobased products. It provides the scaling-up step needed to continue the development of innovations that appear to be promising at laboratory scale up to industrial scale. The Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant helps companies from across the globe to scale-up their biobased processes and to industrialise them. The Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant is an independent, open, innovation centre for the biobased economy.

Biofuel from barley
The pilot plant recently hit the headlines when it helped partner Celtic Renewables to produce the first biofuel derived from waste products from Scotch Whisky production.

The biobutanol biofuel is produced from draff - kernels of barley which are soaked in water to facilitate the fermentation process in whisky production - and pot ale, the yeasty liquid that is left over following distillation.