Biobased innovation wins Climate and Environment award

German chemical company Clariant has been awarded the 2015 German Innovation Prize for Climate and Environment (Der Deutsche Innovationspreis für Klima und Umwelt - IKU) for its innovative sunliquid technology. This biotechnological process produces cellulosic ethanol from agricultural residues and was awarded first place in the Process Innovations category winning against 14 other competing technologies.

The sunliquid technology convinced a jury of independent experts from business, science, media and politics chaired by Professor Klaus Töpfer. Biofuels and biobased chemicals made from agricultural residues such as wheat straw are produced sustainably and economically using this process without competing with food or feed production. Cellulosic ethanol made with sunliquid® technology is ground-breaking for climate and environmental protection.

“Clariant is continually investing in the development of sustainable products from renewable raw materials and in the exploration of innovative biotechnologies such as sunliquid. This pioneering process has great potential for the production of environmentally compatible biofuels and a multitude of biobased raw materials that are suitable for various specialty products, such as those of the cosmetic industry,” said Clariant CEO Hariolf Kottmann.

“Biofuels from agricultural residues play a key role in making mobility more sustainable worldwide. Greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by up to 95% compared with fossil fuels. The award from the Federal Ministry validates our approach,” added Andre Koltermann, Head of Group Biotechnology at Clariant pictured above (second left) receiving the award from Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks (second right) and Holger Lösch, member of the BDI Executive Board (far right) with Markus Rarbach, Head Start-up Business Project Biofuels & Derivatives at Clariant (far left).

Innovative sustainable chemistry
The award highlights the chemical sector as a truly high-technology industry at the forefront of sustainable innovation. SusChem welcomes this prestigious German Innovation Prize going to innovative and sustainable chemistry. SusChem is committed to addressing societal challenges via a sustainability based approach (simultaneously addressing the needs of the 3Ps – people planet and profit) using innovative. This commitment is clear from the programmes and initiatives outlined in our Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA).

“The 2015 German Innovation Prize for Climate and Environment warded to Clariant for its innovative sunliquid technology is another very good example that demonstrates the chemical industry’s commitment to addressing our grand societal challenges by investing in sustainable products derived from renewable raw material,” says Martin Winter, SusChem Innovation Manager at Cefic.

“Innovative biotechnologies at the forefront of innovation such as Clariant’s advanced sustainable sunliquid biofuel enable up to 95% savings in greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, it will contribute significantly to the decarbonisation of the transport sector without competing with food or feed resources.”

Sunlight technology
This is the fifth time that the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) have awarded innovative projects focused on climate and environmentally friendly processes, products and services. The winning selections resulted from a profound technical analysis of all the applications by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI). The award ceremony with Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks and Holger Lösch, member of the BDI Executive Board, took place at the ministry in Berlin. The award comes with a cash prize of €25 000.

You can learn more about Clariant’s sunlight technology on the company’s website and in the video below.

Carbon Dioxide Utilisation: A Catalyst for European Industrial Renaissance?

Essen will be the “place to be” at the end of September for those working on CO2 recycling and #useCO2 projects in Europe. The city will be the venue for the Fourth Conference on Carbon Dioxide as Feedstock for Fuels, Chemistry and Polymers on 29 and 30 September organised by the Nova Institute. And before the conference the SCOT (Smart CO2 Transformation) FP7 project will hold its mid-term conference on Carbon Dioxide Utilisation (CDU) on 28 September. All the events take place at the same location: Haus der Technik in Essen, Germany.

On 28 September the SCOT team will present its Vision for Carbon Dioxide Utilisation and a Strategic European Research Agenda for Europe. The floor will then be open for the views of high level speakers from politics and industry. Plenty of discussion is expected and you are welcome to take part!

SCOT wants to hear the voices of a wide range of participants. Break-out sessions in smaller groups will also provide opportunities for intense knowledge exchange and discussions on the various aspects of #useCO2 policy and technical issues.

Interactive sessions
This one-day conference will be THE place to hear about the latest developments on Carbon Dioxide Utilisation and help shape the future of CDU/ #useCO2 in Europe. Input from the conference will directly feed into SCOT advisory reports to the European Commission. These reports will cover both the future role of CDU in Europe and future support mechanisms for CDU.

The SCOT conference aims to actively engage academics, politicians and industry to discuss the Vision and business opportunities of CDU up to 2030. The break-out sessions will be in small groups of (20-25 people) and will involve a single presentation and a moderator to guide the discussion. The outcomes can help the SCOT team to further narrow down the project’s Vision, Research Objectives and Action Plan.

The sessions are on:

• The Potential of Carbon Dioxide Utilization for Mineralization and Waste
• Availability of low-cost low-carbon electricity for CDU
• Making chemical building blocks using CO2
• Working towards better LCA for CDU and System boundary definitions of CDU
• Power to X: Synthetic fuels from CO2? 
• Framing Carbon Dioxide Utilisation
• Bridging the Gap: (Policy) options to get from lab to market

The SCOT project team are certain that there are already many ideas for CDU that only require a good platform and funding to make them happen. At the end of the conference, SCOT is organising a matchmaking event to allow people to find projects and partners to respond successfully to the European research calls of 2016 on Carbon Dioxide Utilisation. Information will be available on next year’s Horizon 2020 calls including those under the SPIRE PPP initiative and the forthcoming Horizon Prize on CO2 utilisation. Come along to pitch your project ideas and expertise!

Participation in the SCOT conference (including the matchmaking event) costs €50 and you can register here. Students have the opportunity of getting a free ticket on a first-come-first-serve basis.
For more information, please contact the project secretariat. You can download the programme here.

CO2 as Feedstock
The SCOT conference takes place back to back with the Fourth Conference on Carbon Dioxide as Feedstock that is hosted by the Nova-Institute on 29 and 30 September at the Haus der Technik in Essen.

Over the last few years, the rise of this topic has developed rapidly from several research projects and industrial applications to become more and more dynamic, especially in the fields of solar fuels (power-to-fuel, power-to-gas) and also in CO2-based chemicals and polymers. At this conference leading players will showcase some enhanced and also new applications using carbon dioxide as feedstock. Representatives from political bodies and research institutes will be on hand at the event to present and discuss the latest national and regional policies, strategies and visions.

You can access the full programme for the event here and registration is here.

BIO-TIC Workshops: Building blocks, Biofuels and Bioplastics

Three Bio-Business workshops are being organised by SusChem’s FP7 BIO-TIC project during Q4 2014. The workshops will help shape BIO-TIC’s strategic agenda to boost the uptake of industrial biotechnology (IB) in Europe. The workshops cover three major IB product segments that promise significant potential for Europe’s industry and society: Chemical Building Blocks, Biofuels and Bioplastics.

Building blocks
The first workshop takes place on 1 October in Reims, France as part of the major IB event: the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and the Biobased Economy (EFIB 2014). Its title is: "Chemical Building Blocks – What do we need to do to build sustainable foundations for the bio-based chemical industry in Europe?”

“The objective of this workshop is to collect input from stakeholders interested in chemical building blocks, discuss the main hurdles that impact the use of IB in this market segment and develop concrete actions to mitigate these hurdles,” says Pierre Barthélemy, Innovation Manager at Cefic. “The information collected during this and the other workshops will be included in the final version of the BIO-TIC roadmap that will be published in mid-2015.”

Biofuels
The second workshop is organised in London on 23 October and covers "Advanced Biofuels – Fuelling the Industry in Europe." Although at present the production of advanced biofuels world-wide is still quite low, various policy drivers both in the EU and elsewhere provide a significant incentive for their future development. However, many hurdles exist to the full exploitation of advanced biofuels production in the EU.

The outputs of this workshop will be used in the development of a roadmap to identify research and innovation funding priorities within the EU and will help shape the EU research and innovation agenda to 2030.

You can download a flyer for this workshop here.

Bioplastics
Finally a workshop entitled "Bio-based Plastics – How do we grow the EU Industry?” will be held on 1 December in Brussels. Today, bio-based plastics have an established market, demonstrating rapid growth both in Europe and globally. While Europe is currently the largest producer and user of bio-based plastics, this situation is expected to change in the future with production increasingly being based in countries where feedstocks are cheaper and where production costs are lower. Even with increasing fossil fuel prices expected to make bio-based plastics more competitive compared to fossil-derived plastics, ensuring the cost-competitiveness of EU bio-based plastics production compared to other regions globally is expected to become an increasingly difficult challenge.

“Stakeholders interested in bioplastics will have the opportunity to discuss the main hurdles that impact the use of industrial biotechnology in the bioplastics market segment and propose concrete actions to overcome these hurdles,” explains Pierre Barthélemy.

Registration for all the workshops is now open and can be accessed via a dedicated website.

Objectives
With these workshops and two previous events, the BIO-TIC project consortium aims to bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes.

The objectives of all the workshops are to:

• identify technological, non-technological and market hurdles for the uptake of industrial biotechnology in these sectors, 
• develop recommendations and solutions to overcome the identified hurdles, 
• contribute to the development, testing and fine-tuning of the BIO-TIC roadmaps,
• bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes,
• collect data to develop draft indicators to measure the socio-economic and environmental impact of IB and the use of renewables-based products in the European Union.

More information
Input from the market and experts in industry and research are critical to build a basis for the BIO-TIC roadmaps and to ensure that actions are developed which best fit the needs of this sector. SusChem, Cefic, EuropaBio and all the BIO-TIC partners welcome any comments on the current draft documents. You can submit comments via email.  

For more information on the BIO-TIC project and the business-case workshops visit the project website or contact Pierre Barthélemy, Innovation Manager at Cefic.