Lignin, new opportunities
As researchers have discovered commercial pathways to separate cellulose and hemicellulose on a commercial scale, lignin treatment is the next step. And quite more complex. Utrecht University seems well underway to tackle this problem. Chemistry is on its way to discover many pathways for separation of vegetal fibres into green chemical building blocks. Recently, DSM
Top sector policy, a mission impossible?
Government should invest more in innovation in businesses, and less in fundamental scientific research. That is the shorthand notation for the new Dutch innovation policy, ‘top sector policy’. But this policy meets with difficulties, while financing research is increasingly unclear. Until recently, Dutch government paid its R&D share out of natural gas profits. But as
Will there ever be a big BPM factory in Europe?
They were not overly optimistic, the industrialists gathered at the conference on Biobased Performance Materials, last week in Wageningen, on the future prospects of the bioplastics industry in Europe. There were quite a few of them. And they were very sceptical about Europe’s industry policy (not about research facilities, inter alia). Europe’s biobased economy lags
Europe’s bioeconomy: this year is decisive
That is Nathalie Moll’s opinion, secretary-general to Europabio, the Brussels lobby branch of Europe’s biotechnological industry. Industrial biotechnology is growing fast, and is selected as one of six Key Enabling Technologies for a greener and more sustainable Europe. The European bioeconomy (European shorthand for agriculture and all production from agricultural crops) by now has a
Logistics in the biobased society
It goes without saying that the biobased economy will produce major changes in society. Yet, many people do not realise to what an extent – eventually, the biobased economy will produce another society, a biobased society. Logistics is a fine example. Today, crude oil tankers make up for the biggest logistical movements around the globe,
