Purac joins BE-Basic consortium
18 February 2010. Back
to overview
Purac, a subsidiary of CSM, signed today a
research contract to participate in the research program of
BE-Basic; a consortium of international knowledge institutes, the
Dutch government, global industry and financial partners. The
research program aims at developing an economy based on renewable
resources. Purac is a partner in this consortium as it develops new
sustainable building blocks for the chemical industry.
Purac already has some important initiatives in this area such
as Lactides for Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) and Succinic Acid. This
initiative will also speed up Purac's program to use alternative
biomass such as agricultural byproducts instead of sugars, glucose
and tapioca starch as substrates for its fermentation
processes.
The Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands is
coordinating the initiative that includes, among others, an R&D
budget exceeding 120 million Euro, of which 60 million Euro is made
available by the Dutch Ministries of Finance and Economic Affairs.
In this program, BE-Basic also plans for a multi-purpose bioprocess
facility for scale-up research, suited to both current and future
technologies.
Gerard Hoetmer, CEO of CSM comments: "The participation of
Purac in the BE-Basic program will boost the program of Purac in
the area of sustainable chemistry. This program gives us a
considerable opportunity together with our partners, to grow the
market for biobased chemicals and contribute to a sustainable
economy."
About BE-Basic
BE-Basic is a research
consortium, coordinated by the Technical University of Delft The
Netherlands, supporting the development of clean, robust and
competitive bio-based chemicals, materials and energy industries,
including responsible monitoring and control of healthy soil and
water environments, on the basis of advanced genomics technologies
and bioprocess engineering. BE-Basic unifies the capabilities of
leading Dutch and international universities, knowledge institutes
and advanced industries of various scales.
