Over the next 3 years, 11 partners in West North Brabant will work under the leadership of TNO to create green building blocks with local vegetable residual flows.
From grass to glue, from sugar beet pulp to paint or from wood chips to insulating foam are examples of what the B4 project – Better Biobased Building Blocks – has in mind. These building blocks not only make the construction sector more sustainable, but also provide scratch resistance, flame retardancy or UV resistance. In addition to these technological innovations, the partners in this B4 project also share knowledge to prepare pupils, students, companies and administrators for and involve them in this raw materials transition. This will transform West-North Brabant into the hotspot for biobased building blocks for the construction sector.
The construction sector faces an enormous challenge: emit half less CO2030 by 2 and 2050% by 90. One of the fossil building blocks that will be replaced by a sustainable alternative are aromatics. No less than 40% of all products around us contain aromatics. Think of paint, glue, insulation material, textiles and foams. Aromatics are currently made from fossil raw materials and this is not good for the environment and the climate.
B4: Better Biobased Building Blocks
The B4 project combines the entrepreneurship, knowledge and expertise of small and medium-sized companies (Relement, Impershield, Baril Coatings, Bodewes and Progression-Industry) and larger companies (Westlake Epoxy and Worlée) with the technologies and knowledge of TNO, VITO and Avans University of Applied Sciences. The partners want to demonstrate that biobased aromatics can successfully replace fossil aromatics in at least 6 applications for the construction industry, such as coatings, composites, acrylic and epoxy resins. And that these green alternatives are not only sustainable but also commercially attractive.
The Green Chemistry Campus in Bergen op Zoom is the epicenter of this project. It is home to Shared Research Center Biorizon, an initiative of TNO and VITO, which works together with partners on the technological development of bio-aromatics.
By involving everyone involved, a flywheel is created that ensures that the transition to a climate-neutral economy becomes reality. The Campus therefore organizes a large number of meetings and workshops for a wide audience within the B4 project. For SMEs who want to know what the opportunities are for their company, for students who are considering a career in biobased chemistry, for employees in the chemical industry who want to know what will change for them if they start working with biobased raw materials and for administrators who want to know what the opportunities of this raw materials transition are for their organization.
West-North Brabant as a biobased hotspot
Helping regions that are highly dependent on fossil industries with the transition to a climate-neutral economy in a fair and equal manner; that is the aim of the European Union's Just Transition Fund. The B4 project aims to make West-North Brabant a hotspot in the field of bio-based building blocks for the construction sector. West-North Brabant potentially has everything for this: agricultural residual products such as sugar beet pulp as a green raw material, a chemical sector with a lot of knowledge and personnel and strong logistics connections. The B4 project partners want to offer a sustainable economic perspective to the region by offering a new revenue model for the agricultural sector and creating additional jobs in the chemical industry.
The B4 project has a total budget of €4,4 million and is co-financed by the European Union in the context of the Just Transition Fund (JTF), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment and the Province North Brabant.
Source Green Chemistry Campus
