BIOCHEM Milan Success, Frankfurt Next

BIOCHEM held its first “Accelerator Forum” in Milan from 5 to 7 October. The event, which was run alongside the LIFE_MED 2011 conference, attracted over 90 attendees, including SMEs, investors and representatives from national and regional innovation agencies.

As well as hearing about the BIOCHEM project and getting an opportunity to try out the new toolbox, there were a number of general talks outlining some of the European and national initiatives aimed at stimulating the bio-based products market. Over the second and third days a variety of SMEs had the opportunity to pitch to a panel of investors and get constructive feedback on their business plans and market focus.

The event provided an excellent opportunity to assemble companies, private investors and innovation agencies in one place and many fruitful discussions took place outside the main sessions. The next Accelerator Forum will take place alongside the huge ACHEMA 2012 meeting, which will be held in Frankfurt between 18 and 22 June. By this time BIOCHEM will have identified many more SMEs to take part in the project and benefit from a BIOCHEM boost to their business.

SMEs that have an interest in developing their activities in the bio-based product market are very welcome to take part in BIOCHEM. It costs nothing, apart a few hours of your time, and could have a major impact on your success in this growing market. You can contact any of the partners through the BIOCHEM website. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Water Efficient EIP starts consultation

SusChem wil be participating at the Stakeholder consultation for the candidate European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water Efficiency that takes place in Brussels tomorrow (October 20). During the consultation stakeholders will discuss the proposal and its concrete objectives and targets, focus areas, structure, governance and implementation.

Under the Innovation Union flagship initiative of the European Union, DG Environment, in close cooperation with DG Research and Innovation and other DG's, is developing a proposal for a candidate EIP on Water Efficiency.

Water scarcity and droughts already affect one third of the EU territory, floods across Europe have caused enormous human and economic costs, while water pollution remains an issue across Europe, posing threats to public health. These are major societal challenges with links to many sectors. Innovative solutions, bringing together all involved actors and different disciplines can provide effective and sustainable solutions and can contribute to realizing a global leadership position for European innovative solutions to water challenges.

SusChem is already involved in initiatives, such as the ChemWater FP7 project, that can support the proposed EIP.

This general meeting at the Centre Borchette will be first of a number of stakeholder consultations. Further, more specific stakeholder consultations on particular elements of the proposal will be organised until the end of February 2012.

It is hoped that a Commission Communication will then be developed for June 2012 with subsequent endorsment by the European Council and the European Parliament later in the year.

SusChem at 'Entrée en matière'

The SusChem exhibits on the Smart Energy Home (SEH) and F³ Factory (see below) are amongst a multitude of attractions featuring advanced materials and material science at the 'Entrée en matière' exhibition organised by Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris.

This major exhibition runs from today (19 October) to 31 October in the Trocadéro Gardens close to the Eiffel Tower in the French capital.

The SusChem exhibits were organised via the Union des Industries Chimiques who have more images from the exhibition on their Facebook page.

The exhibition covers all types of matter from the elements to galaxies, cells to neutrinos showing the beauty of nature and the excitment of science.

Entry to 'Entrée en matière' is free and the exhibition is designed to be accessible to all ages from 8 to 80 and beyond. Attractions include films, documentaries and debates with specialists.

The major themes of the event are: 'Exploring Materials', 'Transforming Materials', 'Materials for Life', and 'Dream Materials'. A number of special event days are scheduled including a 'Chemistry' Day on Saturday 29 October from 10h00 to 19h00.

In addition two conferences are being organised. On 21 October a conference on "Chemical Careers" is being held at 14h30, while the conference on 27 October at 14h30 the topic is "Decoding chemicals labels".

Not to be missed!

Star-COLIBRI issues Biorefinery Vision, Roadmap

The final event of the FP7 Star-COLIBRI project in Brussels last week (7 October) marked the official publication the project's Joint European Biorefinery Vision for 2030 and Joint European Research Roadmap 2020. The High-level Policy-maker Conference on Biorefineries saw a discussion of key policy priorities in the context of the future bio-economy strategy. Special emphasis was given to the important role of biorefineries in achieving the ambitious goals set out in this strategy, including resource-efficiency, sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction.


The Joint European Biorefinery Vision for 2030 predicts that the Biobased Economy is expected to grow significantly in Europe in the next 20 years. One of its core pillars is biorefining: the sustainable processing of biomass such as food, fuel and paper into a spectrum of marketable products and energy. In 2030, it is estimated that biorefineries will use a wider range of feedstocks and will produce an even greater variety of end-products than today.

Biorefinery goals
Achieving the goals set out in the report will require future biorefineries to be better integrated, more flexible and operating more sustainably. This will only be possible if crucial bottlenecks along the entire value-chain can be removed.

To address these challenges, several strategic research areas must be addressed by 2020. These are:

• Biomass production and supply (including logistics)
• Processing (both pre-treatment and conversion)
• Programme integration (cross-sector, value-chain optimisation, process integration and overall sustainability assessments), and
• Market development (from research to markets).

Invaluable tools
“The new reports on Biorefineries as well as the key strategic research areas discussed at [the] conference have provided invaluable information and tools to enable policy-makers to build a framework for the development of a sustainable European bioeconomy, with a network of biorefineries playing an essential role,“ said Johan Elvnert, coordinator of the project.

Commenting at the event, Dutch MEP Judith Merkies said: “Policy-makers in Europe have identified three key challenges that will affect Europe before the rest of the world. These are an ageing society, stability and equity in the economy and resource efficiency. Because our consumption grid is the highest per person in the world, it is our responsibility in Europe to turn these challenges into benefits. The issues and solutions identified through the Star-COLIBRI project are exactly the kind of responses intended under the EU Innovation Partnerships and it is of critical importance to resource efficiency in Europe and to the economy as a whole that we initiate these solutions as soon as possible”

More information
The Joint European Biorefinery Vision for 2030 and the European Biorefinery Joint Strategic Research Roadmap for 2020 are available to download on the Star-COLIBRI website.

To obtain more information on the Star-COLIBRI project contact project co-ordinator Johan Elvnert of the Forest-based Sector Technology Platform, or Christophe Luguel from the IAR Cluster.

Star-COLIBRI (Strategic Research Targets for 2020 – Collaboration Initiative on Biorefineries) is a two-year Coordination and Support Action funded under FP7. The project involves five European Technology Platforms (including SusChem) and five major European Research organisations.

Star-COLIBRI's main objectives are to overcome fragmentation and promote cross-fertilization in the area of biorefineries research, support innovation by speeding up and facilitating industrial exploitation of research results in the biorefinery field, promote coordination in the field of future R&D funding, and facilitate the creation of Public-Private Partnerships.

Klaus Sommer, new SusChem Chairman

At the SusChem Board meeting on 22 September Dr. Klaus Sommer, Head of Business Management at Bayer Technology Services was appointed as the new Chairman of the board. He succeeded Dr Paul-Joël Derian who has recently moved from Rhodia to a new position with Suez Environnement.

Klaus has been intimately involved in the founding and evolution of SusChem – in particular through leading the Reaction and Process Engineering workgroup and working to realize the SusChem F³ Factory visionary project and several other strategic initiatives for SusChem.

SusChem News caught up with Dr. Sommer after the board meeting to find out his thoughts on the future direction of SusChem and his immediate goals for the technology platform.

SN: What are your plans for SusChem as its new chairman?

KS: As you know SusChem is a multi-stakeholder organization and relies on the work of many committed members, including the board members, from industry, academia and other research institutions. Over the years SusChem has managed to increase its visibility and its effectiveness by defining positions for the Chemical and Biotechnology Industry with respect to programmes and projects based on European Commission funding.

The ultimate aim for SusChem is to contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of Europe. Innovation and Technology are the two key elements in maintaining and improving competitiveness and SusChem has highlighted the critical role of sustainable chemistry and industrial biotechnology in delivering new technological solutions and innovations along the value chain.

We are now at a crucial point since the new Common Strategic Framework for research and Innovation – Horizon 2020 - is currently being defined by the European Commission and the European Parliament. SusChem has two main focus points in this context.

First, to continuously give input for the content and the calls of the Common Strategic Framework and, secondly, to launch significant programmes such as Public Private Partnerships (PPP) or make a significant contribution to European Innovation Partnerships (EIP) in collaboration with other European Technology Platforms. It is my priority to support SusChem in both focus areas.

SN: Do you have some specific programmes in mind?

KS: As I already indicated SusChem will have to develop a strategic plan for Horizon 2020. This would be similar in spirit to the original SusChem Strategic Research Agenda but adapted to recognise the new Societal Challenges like resource and energy efficiency

SusChem is strongly supporting PPPs and EIPs, such as “Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency”, “Water Efficient Europe”, “Critical Raw Materials” and “Smart Cities”. These set our priorities for the near- and mid-term.

SN: Do you have any specific expectations from the policy makers?

KS: I can say that SusChem has – over the years – established a very effective dialogue with the policy makers. This goes right back to the original reason why this European Technology Platform was set up namely to establish a body that can coordinate, align and deliver positions in Research, Development and Innovation for the Chemical and Biotechnology Industry. Our expectation is that the dialogue continues and that our positions, together with that of others, are recognized and considered in shaping future policies.

One additional specific point is that tools and workflows need to be continuously simplified so that it becomes even easier to have access to the European Commission Programmes. The formal requirements to engage with European programmes are still often considered to be too high and this acts as a barrier to participation. We have recently seen some encouraging communication and commitments; Horizon 2020 is a great opportunity to implement steps in the right direction.

SusChem has raised the profile of the sustainable chemistry, biotechnology and process engineering over the past few years. It has had a tremendous success in developing a specific research agenda and initiating a range of related projects. I believe that it has even greater opportunities ahead with the innovation agenda and I look forward to leading our technology platform, jointly with the SusChem board members, in these challenging times.

INVITE for F3

The SusChem inspired F³ Factory project took a major step forward recently with the opening of the INVITE research centre at the Bayer Technology Services (BTS) Chempark in Leverkusen, Germany.

The INVITE (INnovations, VIsions and Technologies) research facility (pictured left) is a joint venture between Bayer Technology Services and TU Dortmund University and was formally opened on September 21. The facility is dedicated to the development and testing of flexible and efficient production concepts for the “Factory of the Future”.

The SusChem F³ Factory project will be one of the first projects to take advantage of the INVITE infrastructure. F³ stands for Fast, Flexible, Future and this project marks the first time that 25 partners, including seven of the leading European chemical companies, have put aside their own competing interests to combine the advantages of larger, better optimized plants with those of smaller, more flexible plants with the aim of conserving resources.

Ambitious goals
“INVITE will provide a major part of the infrastructure required to achieve the F³ Factory projects ambitious goals,” said Dr. Klaus Sommer of Bayer Technology Services, a SusChem board member and a leading figure in the F³ project. “The F³ Factory project was originally launched as a “Visionary Project” inspired by the strategic work within SusChem and is an example of how industry and academic partners can collaborate to push technology along in a very relevant area.”

The principle idea is to build chemical factories according to a modular principle. Modular standard apparatus are consolidated into containers, which can then be connected in series to form a complete plant. Both stakeholders in INVITE GmbH (BTS and TU Dortmund) are participants in F³ Factory, a €30 million research project coordinated by Bayer Technology Services.

INVITE’s Managing Director Dr. Thomas Bieringer is pictured above holding a modular micro-reactor component that can be used to construct highly optimized process configurations in the facility.

INVITE funding
Construction of the INVITE facility began in October 2010 and was partially funded by the German federal government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with contributions also from Bayer and TU Dortmund University. The centre will eventually employ more than 20 people in the 800m² facility that comprises a technical centre, laboratories and office space.

Warsaw to showcase SusChem FP7 success

When the European Commission’s FP7 Programme was launched in 2007 its aim was to increase productivity and economic growth through innovation. SusChem had already developed its Strategic Research Agenda to promote collaborative Research, Development and Innovation between European industry and academia in the fields of Industrial Biotechnology, Materials Technology and Reaction and Process Design and many of its ideas and concepts were incorporated into the initial calls for FP7. Now these initial FP7 projects are being competed.

To celebrate the successful conclusion of these initial ‘SusChem inspired’ projects, SusChem is organising an event in collaboration with SusChem Poland under the patronage of the Polish Presidency of the EU to share the outcomes of three successful SusChem FP7 projects that all included Polish participants.

The event, which takes place at Warsaw University on 18 October is entitled ‘SusChem’s FP7 Success Stories: Creating economic value through effective collaboration’ and will feature FP7 projects: EUMET, EFECTS and INTENANT.

The projects
EUMET (Design, Development, Utilization and Commercialization Of Olefin Metathesis Catalysts). Led by St Andrews University in the UK, EUMET has developed a range of novel olefin metathesis catalysts which exceed the state of the art. The first example has already been scaled-up by industrial partner Umicore and is available from chemical research catalogues. Improved olefin metathesis catalysts have also been discovered and approved for the synthesis of a Janssen Pharmaceuticals drug currently in Phase III clinical trials.

INTENANT (Integrated synthesis and purification of single enantiomers). Coorodinated by Max Planck Institute, Magdeburg in Germany the project has looked to simplify the synthesis, purification and yields of enantiomeric substances for the pharmaceutical industry. In partnership with AstraZeneca, Bayer Technical Services and Molisa improved process technologies have been developed and applied to the development each of the company’s development pipelines. Training in the application of the methodologies is being rolled-out across the companies and is changing how they perform their candidate drug pipeline development. A spin-out company FGEN has also been formed which uses the technology developed in INTENANT to develop optimized biocatalysts.

EFECTS (Efficient Environmental-Friendly Electro-Ceramics Coating Technology and Synthesis) was coordinated by the University of Ghent in Belgium and has advanced the use of ink-jet printing technology to develop functional electro-ceramic coatings which have been incorporated into commercial products as diverse as high-temperature superconductors for Zenergy Power’s wind turbines and Nanophos’s self-cleaning ceramic tiles.

The SusChem Newsblog will be featuring case studies from further ‘SusChem inspired’ collaborative projects over the next few months.

SusChem – key to chemistry
This event will bring together European policy-makers, politicians, industry and academia to discuss to share the benefits and impacts that have resulted though collaboration in these and other FP7 projects and discuss best practice for maximising commercial impact from collaboration.

In addition speakers from the European Commission will outline the FP7’s successor programme: Horizon 2020. And SusChem representatives, including Prof Rodney Townsend, will describe the vision and strategy that the technology platform will be taking to maximise the benefits of sustainable chemistry for the chemical community, the European Union and its citizens.

More information
For more information on the Warsaw SusChem Success event take a look at the SusChem website. In particular you can find the agenda for the event here and can register directly for the event here.

For further information and specific queries please contact the SusChem secretariat.