Biobased chemicals: European share to drop sharply
Whereas world capacity for biobased chemicals and materials is rapidly growing, Europe clearly lags behind. Lux Research, a Boston based company, expects a doubling of global biobased capacity in 2017 to 13.2 Mton. But Europe’s share will drop from 37% in 2005 to 14% in 2017. And the winner in biobased chemicals is… The United
Toxic substances in food packaging – an opportunity for bioplastics?
Our industrial society exposes us to low doses of toxic substances. These are known to have health effects – but to what extent? For some time, air pollution and lung degradation have been a focus of debate; now researchers started to attack toxic components of food packaging. Do these migrate to our food? Concerns about
Paper and pulp industry needs biorefinery, says Michiel Adriaanse
The paper and pulp industry calls it MIMO: Multiple Inputs, Multiple Outputs. In other words: biorefinery of various resources in order to produce multiple end products. Of which the paper and pulp sector would be just one of the clients, among which also food and feed industries, chemical industry and the energy sector. Says Michiel
SkyNRG for sustainable jet fuel
Just five years ago, flying on bio jet fuel seemed an impossible dream. But SkyNRG developed a powerful concept that allows it to offer this product at an increasing number of airports. Its funding and co-creation model allows the company to supply the fuel at an affordable price. SkyNRG’s goal is to offer sustainable jet
Design rules for the biobased industry #4: elegance is beautiful
In this series, we discussed three design rules: reduce capital costs and create jobs, be lean on materials flows, and preserve structure. Our last guideline, elegance is beautiful, sums up the former three and enlarges them. Elegance in chemistry means arriving at one’s goal with a minimum of effort (measured in energy use and number
Design rules for the biobased industry, #3: preserve structure
Petrochemical industry breaks down the feedstock into its simplest components, and subsequently starts piecing all ‘building blocks’ together in order to arrive at the required products. Biobased industry will never be able to compete if it follows this same logic. In fact, it should do quite the opposite: preserve structure along the process, as much
Elon Musk and a lot of batteries
“Cheap batteries will revolutionise the renewable energy market,” wrote ex-Secretary of State for the UK Chris Huhne past Sunday in the Guardian. For the supply of renewable energy it’s usually not stocks but flows that get the attention. For lack of a reservoir of either solar or wind energy that we can use at will,
Biobased Society becomes Bio Based Press
As of today, the name of our website will be biobasedpress.eu. This is a better expression of who we are. Our twitter account was already called @biobasedpress. From now on, we will use this name in all our communications. Our old links and tiles will be changed automatically. Sustainability and innovation We are journalists. We
on: 20 March 2014