Initiative launched
A new research initiative bringing together the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the UK’s main public funder, with 10 companies has been launched to accelerate development of technologies required for the sustainable production of chemicals through biorefining.
The founder member companies of the Integrated Biorefinery Technologies Initiative (IBTI) Club are Biocaldol, BP Biofuels UK, British Sugar, Croda, Danisco, Genencor, Green Biologics, AHDB-HGCA, KWS UK, Syngenta and TMO Renewables.
The IBTI Club has £5 million from the BBSRC and company contributions, to fund basic research to solve some of the issues the sector currently faces, including challenges specific to second generation of biorefining, which could lead to the production of chemicals, materials and fuels from agricultural and food waste and non-food crops instead of from fossil fuels.
The club forms one part of BBSRC’s wider bioenergy investment strategy. In the coming months it will announce funding in second generation bioenergy research bringing spending in this area to around £25 million.
In particular the IBTI Club will fund research to maximise the yield of the biomass going into a biorefinery and the quality and quantity of product produced; develop integrated bioprocessing techniques to remove bottlenecks from current systems and to extract the most valuable compounds from refined feedstocks; and maximise the value of by-products from the biorefining process to increase the economic viability of the process.
Chris Tapsell, Technical Director of KWS UK, says the public–private club will be more than a sum of its parts. “By bringing together […] UK academic researchers with industrial partners we can ensure that the work we are investing in will be relevant to the challenges of this important sector, from improved raw materials, improved process and increased added value of end products. Our ambition is for the projects funded by the initiative to produce innovative technologies and lead into new demonstration facilities.”
The IBTI Club will run for five years and will have two calls for proposals.
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