New project in socio-economic cluster

In the socio-economic cluster the first project is about to start. Project leader Dr Martin Patel (Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University - picture) collaborates in this project with Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) and Food & Biobased Research (FBR).

While the bulk of the work done in CatchBio is laboratory research, it is also important to evaluate the sustainability of the products and processes investigated. To this end, this CatchBio subproject will assess environmental, economic and social aspects for selected CatchBio process chains leading to bulk chemicals and fuels. Due to the early stage of some areas in sustainability research, preparatory work will need to be done on methodological issues and on background datasets. This will ensure the comparability of the analyses conducted in a second step. The analyses will be performed both for individual products and for various combinations of processes in a so-called biorefinery. This subproject will allow to judge whether and if so, to which extent the CatchBio products and processes are attractive from a sustainability perspective. This will allow to pinpoint opportunities and future challenges.

Involved institutes: Copernicus Institute (Utrecht), Food & Biobased Research (Wageningen), Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (Petten)