Biobased raw materials are already available, and they are increasing. Especially in construction, it is no longer necessary to work with fossil, environmentally harmful materials that are also starting to become scarce. They know that at the Biobased Innovation Garden in Colijnsplaat (Zeeland) like no other. Since 2014, work has been done there on the cultivation and application of plant materials: from flax to tobacco, from cotton to Russian dandelions. And yet they do not yet end up in products en masse. The real breakthrough will have to wait. That is why the Biobased Innovation Garden organized the Biobased Acceleration Day on July 5 at the Agricultural Innovation and Knowledge Center Rusthoeve. Central question: how do we get the market moving?
About 150 people visited the beautifully situated experimental farm on the Oosterschelde. On a sunny day, they walked with guidance through the fields with promising crops such as bamboo, miscanthus, hemp or flax. They networked, listened to inspiring keynotes and participated in lively discussions about construction and chemistry. During the event, a selection of biobased materials that are already ready for the market was on display at an extensive exhibition (the so-called 'Acceleration Square').
Cor van Oers (Delphy manager and Biobased Innovation Garden project leader) calls it the 'incubator of new ideas'. But there is still much to do. If you go to the hardware store because you want to insulate your house, you will find all kinds of solutions, but no bio-based insulation boards. If you pick up a jar of water-based paint, you will receive plastic stirrers with it. With some good will, textiles made from natural raw materials can be found in the wardrobe, such as wool and cotton, but they are chock full of fossil-based additives, such as plasticizers, flame retardants and dyes.
“When I look at the Versnellingsplein, I already see a lot of alternatives. We just have to get them into stores. It just needs to go a little faster,” says Van Oers. According to him, arable farmers play a key role in this. “It will never work without large-scale vegetable production.” But this will have to be matched by good prices: “at least the yield of winter wheat.”
Biobased chemistry
It is crucial that we start now to scale up innovations and create new, innovative chains, argued Willem Sederel, chairman of Circular Biobased Delta (CBBD). The transition to the use of more circular and biobased raw materials is desperately needed to realize the ambition to emit 2030 megatons less CO10 by 2 in the South Netherlands (CBBD's working area) through concrete projects. The German Nova Institute calculated that 450 billion tons of carbon is currently used annually for chemicals and materials worldwide, the vast majority of which is of fossil origin. This can only be replaced by combining chemical recycling (particularly gasification and pyrolysis) of waste plastics with the use of agricultural crops for, for example, sugars, glycerol, fats, lignin and biogas.
“I personally think that biobased will play a much more important role in chemistry than is currently the case, especially because achieving sufficient CO2 reduction with chemical recycling alone is not that easy,” says Sederel. CBBD is therefore fully committed to interesting programs for the development of products from biorefinery, for example chemical building blocks from sugars (Sugar Delta, Biorizon) and bio-asphalt with lignin (CHAPLIN). For the latter project, there are more than 25 test sections with bio-asphalt in various compositions in Zeeland alone.
Converting refineries
A company that is already investing heavily and on a large scale in the biobased transition is Neste, the oil company from Finland that started in 1948 with heavily contaminated crude oil from Russia as its only raw material. It was forced to develop innovative cleaning techniques for this purpose. Neste was the first oil refinery in the world to produce unleaded petrol and is now known for its sustainable fuels (renewable diesel, jet fuel) based on biobased residual products, such as waste oils and fats from the food industry. And with success. In addition to two refineries in Finland, the company also has large biodiesel production sites in Rotterdam and Singapore. The capacity of the last two factories will be doubled: an investment of a total of € 3.3 billion. In California (USA), Neste, together with Marathon Petroleum, is also converting a complete traditional refinery to biobased; another investment of almost €1 billion.
“We do this for several parties worldwide, explained Frank Hendrickx, head of Feedstock & Production Platform Chemical Recycling at Neste during the Biobased Acceleration Day. “We are beginning to supply the global petrochemical industry with renewable raw materials for new plastics and chemicals. Because the demand is enormous and will have doubled in 2040 compared to 2016. Everyone wants those raw materials. So we have to move towards a circular system, where we no longer extract carbon from the ground.”
Neste therefore sees chemical recycling of waste plastics as part of the solution. To this end, the company is building a factory for the thermochemical liquefaction of mixed waste plastics in the port of Vlissingen (part of North Sea Port) together with the Belgian polymer recycler Ravago; initially good for 55.000 tons of plastics per year, but by 2030 with an annual capacity of 200.000 tons.
Stick your neck out
In a number of workshops, participants in the Acceleration Day were able to discuss developments and challenges in construction and chemistry. This raised a pressing question: why does the (national) government not take bigger and faster steps to stimulate the market, for example by offering financial support and making the use of more sustainable raw materials mandatory? A visionless cabinet that pushes the hot potato forward until the next term of government seems to be the answer to this. As a result, suppliers and service providers in the biobased field have to rely on ambitious leaders who dare to stick their neck out.
Such a courageous leader is meteorologist and 'weatherman' Gerrit Hiemstra, who spoke in the afternoon session, presented by the Zeeland representative Jo-Annes de Bat. Hiemstra decided in 2019 to build a climate-neutral biobased family home in the municipality of De Friese Meren. Finding an architect and a construction company that had experience with biobased construction was already a challenge. It was also an unknown process for the municipality. The house was finally completed after three years.
Afterwards, Hiemstra recommended: “Just do it”, because it results in a comfortable home in which only minimal energy is needed for heating or cooling. He did note that it is necessary for the government to provide guidance for bio-based construction, by setting standards, but also by taking control: “For example, by setting requirements for the materials with which a new neighborhood may be built. ” Future residents must be well informed about what they can expect, because: “there is still too much uncertainty.” Moreover, standardization and professionalization are necessary: “It is still too much of a niche, not enough has yet been crystallized. A lot still needs to be done in the chain.”
This was also evident from the following panel discussion. Martijn van Sabbe, director of Bouwbedrijf Fraanje, noted that biobased construction is still slightly more expensive than traditional construction. Gerrit Hiemstra estimates that his home was 10 percent more expensive. “We must make biobased construction affordable for everyone,” says Van Sabbe. “We can only do that by working together, sharing knowledge and scaling up.”
According to André Hogendijk, director of BO Akkerbouw, it is indeed necessary to make biobased construction not the exception, but the standard. He sees this as an interesting opportunity for farmers to add value to extensive cultivation in the crop plan. “It would be good to include hemp, flax and elephant grass, for example, in the existing building plans. That is good for the soil and biodiversity. But then the farmer must be able to earn something from it. We would like to create new chains for this, regionally or nationally.”
Such new crops make it possible to capture carbon for a longer period of time, which can provide the farmer with a modest additional source of income through 'carbon credits' in addition to the normal harvest yield, said Teun Wiebold of aESTI.
There are plenty of opportunities. Taco Tuinhof, architect of Rothuizen Architecten en Advisers, also thinks in serial construction. Because there are often opportunities missed: “A Middelburg residential group, for example, is going to renovate thousands of homes with glass wool and rock wool, while it could just as easily be done with flax or hemp. Moreover, I would also like to transform a number of sad and industrial-looking buildings with biobased materials. Because I think it could be much more inspiring!”
The Biobased Acceleration Day was made possible by Circular Biobased Delta, Biobased Zeeland Implementation Agency, AIKC Rusthoeve, Delphy, BO Akkerbouw and the provinces of Zeeland and North Brabant.
Interested in the presentations? Please contact: circular@biobaseddelta.nl
See also the Biobased Innovations Garden website: www.biobasedgarden.nl
Source: https://circularbiobaseddelta.nl/
