Successful opening of the Bioprocess pilot facility on March 19th 2015
Mar 27, 2015
BPF's press release on March 20, 2015.
The director of the Bioprocess Pilot Facility (BPF), Hans van Leeuwen, together with shareholders and governmental institutions, started the first pretreatment of woodchips in the newly built pretreatment pilot plant, by officially pushing the button of the biomass pretreatment equipment.
This extension of the BPF makes it a unique open access facility for scale up of sustainable production processes. Improving the process of clients, by converting biobased residues into useful chemicals, fuels and ingredients for Food and Pharma.
With more than 250 people attending, an interesting program was the prelude to the official opening. Opportunities and risks of the biobased economy were discussed. The important role the BPF is playing to bridge the gap between labscale and commercial scale, and it was emphasized by Ruud van Raak (Management authority of EFRO program “Kansen voor West”), Roel Bol (Special Envoy Green Growth, Directorate-General for Enterprise and Innovation, Ministry of Economic Affairs) and Luuk van der Wielen (Director BE-Basic, Distinguished Professor Biobased Economy Delft University of Technology) in a round table discussion.
Three pitches from startup companies competed in the biobased challenge to win a voucher of 10.000 euros. The quality of the pitches of Photanol, DAB and Pectcof was outstanding and therefore the jury decided to grant all three contestants a voucher of 10.000 euros. The vouchers, to be used for a pilot in the BPF, were sponsored by the three shareholders of the BPF; Delft University of Technology, Corbion and DSM.
After the official opening the attendees were able to tour the new facilities. The BPF is now accommodated with two new pilot scale up facilities, next to the existing fermentation and downstream processing facilities of the BPF.
One pilot section is designated to use biobased ingredients like wood, gras, straw, corn stover and other lignocellulosic feedstocks.
The other pilot section is specifically meant for foodgrade ingredients, using our ample experience in fermentation and downstream processing.
Situated at the Biotech Campus Delft, the Netherlands, the facility has a modular setup. BPF allows users to construct complex operations by linking the separate process modules: Pretreatment, Hydrolysis, Fermentation and/or Downstream Processing. All product streams can be connected, to mimic a downscale of a commercial plant. The scale up of the lab process can then be proven on pilot scale with a good prediction of the process on commercial scale.
With our experienced crew of about 30 people and a long standing historical track record in bioprocess we help our clients to (im)prove their processes. With an investment of 37 M Euro from government and shareholders, the BPF has been specifically designed to enable the transition from laboratory to industrial scale.
Because of its high quality standards, the BPF can also produce kg-quantities of material for pre-marketing and application tests at customers and/or preclinical trials (for Food or Pharma applications).
For more information please contact:
Arno van de Kant Business Development Manager
0031 6 42480754
