Working Group Material Use of Biomass

The sustainable utilisation of bio-based resources makes a vital contribution to securing the supply of raw materials and to dealing with climate change. Renewable raw materials are expected to become an alternative to oil in future. 

This working group focuses on the material utilisation of non-food biomass to generate materials, chemicals, products made from new materials. The linking of different economic sectors in the group (e.g. timber and forestry, chemicals, plant engineering, energy), the scaling and industrial realisation of production processes facilitates the optimised utilisation of biomass. The group intends to combine expertise from research and industry partners covering the value-added network of bioeconomy and the entire innovation chain.

Topics of interest shall be but not limited to:

• Platform chemicals like lactic acid, succinic acid et cetera that could be obtained during anaerobic digestion leading to the formation of biogas;
• Platform chemicals like lactic, succinic and ascorbic acids that could be obtained from glycerol a by-product from the production of biodiesel;
• Biofuels like biomethane, biohydrogen, biobutanol and bioethanol can also be extracted from glycerol, a co-product from the production of biodiesel
• The extraction of biopetroleum that can be obtained from thermal combustion processes of biomass
• Platform chemicals like ethanol, ethene, proplylene, levulunic acid, propionic acid could be obtained from lignocellulose
• Biopolymers obtained from the chemical modification of hemicellulose, cellulose or lignin
• Oleochemicals from plant vegetable oils and animal fat
• and much more...

Material Use of Carbon Dioxide - Possible topics of interest could be:

• Material utilisation of carbon dioxide for the production of biopolymers;
• Plastics in the 21st Century: shall the carbon come from carbon dioxide;
• Biotechnological conversion of carbon dioxide.