Virent was chosen to participate in the initial Rolls-Royce Laboratory Test program, and was then selected by Rolls-Royce to proceed to the more advanced Rig Testing portion of the program. Virent’s SAK fuel blend met all test requirements and the report concluded that the fuel “…offers the potential to be [a] drop-in fuel and hence achieve approval for use for the aviation industry”.
Economy
French biotech company Global Bioenergies widens cooperation with Audi
Global Bioenergies, French biotech company that is developing a process to convert renewable resources into hydrocarbons through fermentation, and Audi announce the signature of a new collaboration agreement to further broaden the feedstock flexibility of Global Bioenergies’ Isobutene process.
It’s a real boom for Il Bioeconomista in 2015. Thank you and happy new year!
Dear Readers,
thank you very much, heartily. 2015 ended with excellent results for Il Bioeconomista: over 46% more visits to our blog. It is a real boom, which shows how the bioeconomy is increasingly a phenomenon that attracts the attention of global public opinion and gratifies us as journalists, observers of a reality that we have always defined as the industrial revolution of the Third Millennium.
In Italy the world’s first facility for the production of PHAs bioplastics from glycerol
Bio-on and SECI Spa, part of Gruppo Industriale Maccaferri holding, signed an agreement to build the world’s first facility for the production of PHAs bioplastic from biodiesel production co-products, namely glycerol. The two companies will work together to build a production site with a 5 thousand tons/year output, expandable to 10 thousand tons/year.
The 10 Most Innovative Bioeconomy Chief Executive Officers in 2015
The bioeconomy is innovation, the result of the skills and passion of researchers and managers able to create value and new high-qualified jobs. At the end of 2014 Il Bioeconomista launched a new initiative: The 10 Most Innovative Bioeconomy CEOs. We ask a panel of world bioeconomy experts to tell us the Chief Executive Officers that have stood out as the most innovative during the last year.
This is the result in 2015:
Southern Italy re-starts. An interview with Pasquale Granata, GFBiochemicals
Caserta re-starts from the bioeconomy. If the Southern Italian city between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries was known everywhere for the quality of its silk, today can aspire to become a center of gravity of the new sustainable bio-based economy. Here, GF Biochemicals launched last July the commercial-scale production of levulinic acid, using biomass as feedstock. The levulinic acid is a chemical building block that is used in various industrial sectors, from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics, from personal care to flavors and fragrances, from coating to fuel additives. In 2015 the company has produced 2 thousand tons and aims at producing 10 thousand tons in 2017 and up 50 thousand tons by 2019. A revolution, if we think that the company located in Caserta is certain to offer to the market in a few years the bio-based levulinic acid to a price of one dollar per kilo, versus the current 4-5 dollars per kilo for the corresponding product from oil, offering the same performance.
The protagonists of this bio-revolution, which is a key to economic development crucial for Italy and the Southern Italy in particular, are Pasquale Granata, young local entrepreneur, and Mathieu Flamini, the famous Arsenal player, former AC Milan, who unveiled a few days ago his involvement in the company in an interview with the Sun on Sunday.
In this exclusive interview is Pasquale Granata to talk with us about GFBiochemicals and the bioeconomy, as a key to regional regeneration to create economic development and new jobs within a framework of eco-sustainability.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
Stora Enso is increasingly a renewable materials company
Another important step on the road to Stora Enso’s transformation into a renewable materials company. The pulp and paper manufacturer headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, inaugurated yesterday the new Innovation Centre for biomaterials in Stockholm, that will host research, application, business development and strategic marketing under one roof.
Intesa Sanpaolo becomes a Global Partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Intesa Sanpaolo, Italian major banking group, has become a Global Partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, demonstrating its intention to become a key player in the network of stakeholders supporting the transition to a circular economy. The partnership was signed yesterday by Carlo Messina, CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo, and Ellen MacArthur, Chairman and founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. In its role as Global Partner, Intesa Sanpaolo will help to redefine business strategies to capture new opportunities, and will ensure financial support for investments used to re-design the industrial system.
“EU is not moving fast enough”. An interview with Arno van de Kant, BD Director of the BPF
The new circular economy package “seems to me that it is mainly focused on recycling materials, and that is off course also important. But we should also be looking at sustainable production, reducing the amount of oil used and replacing them with biobased products, preferably with a negative CO2 print”. Arno van de Kant, business development director of the Bioprocess Pilot Falicity located in the Netherlands, talks to Il Bioeconomista about the Dutch bioeconomy and the European policies to support the field.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
Avantium and Mitsui to commercialize 100% biobased chemicals FDCA and PEF in Asia
Avantium, a Dutch scale-up renewable chemicals company that develops and commercializes a next generation biobased chemicals and bioplastic, signed an agreement with Mitsui & Co. to commercialize 100% biobased chemicals FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid) and PEF (polyethylene furandicarboxylate) in Asia. As part of this agreement, Mitsui has been granted a right to pu rchase a sizable volume of FDCA from the first commercial FDCA plant to be constructed by Avantium.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 