Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BIOMAC (European Sustainable BIObased nanoMAterials Community (BIOMAC))
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-01-01 al 2022-06-30
Nanostructured bio-based materials (NBM) especially are expected to become highly innovative materials with a great impact on European markets. However, the major challenge in the area lays at the fact that new product concepts are restricted to enter the market because end user applications remain at small lab scale tests, having limited exploitation capacity for industrial deployment. To sustain a viable plan, meeting the market’s demands, it is necessary to upscale the supply chain of biopolymers and nanoadditives production.
To accelerate the market entrance of NBMs, BIOMAC will establish an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) dedicated to upscaling processes incorporating major developments in this area based on two pillars: to generate knowledge and to capture business value. An Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) is a set of entities, providing common access to physical facilities, capabilities and services required for the development, testing and upscaling of nanotechnology and advanced materials in industrial environments. The BIOMAC ecosystem will function as a One-Stop-Shop (OSS) accessible at fair conditions and costs through the collaboration of the multidisciplinary consortium. This will be achieved through a Single Entry Point (SEP) which will be represented by Industrielle Biotechnologie Bayern Netzwerk GmbH (IBB).
Offering an open ecosystem, BIOMAC will focus on the creation and demonstration of novel manufacturing supply and value chains, where technologies that have been developed up to TRL 4-5 will be upscaled and validated to TRL 7, accelerating the process towards the market entrance. The OITB will also offer services that cover the assessment of regulation & safety, sustainability, circularity, and market potential among others with modeling, process control, standardization and characterization, accessible at fair conditions and cost. To do so, the OITB is going to be organized in four Hubs, namely the Pilot Plant Supreme Hub, the Validation Services Hub (VSH) where the services justify the feedstock, the technologies and the products (Quality Control Hub and Process Validation Hub), the Market Uptake Hub (MUH) that targets to support business perspective and legalization issues accompanied by the maintenance of the test cases, and finally the Value Chain assessment Hub (VCH) where the developed value chains will be assessed against economic and environmental criteria within the circular economy frameworks.
To accelerate the market entrance of NBMs, BIOMAC will establish an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) dedicated to upscaling processes incorporating major developments in this area based on two pillars: to generate knowledge and to capture business value. An Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) is a set of entities, providing common access to physical facilities, capabilities and services required for the development, testing and upscaling of nanotechnology and advanced materials in industrial environments. The BIOMAC ecosystem will function as a One-Stop-Shop (OSS) accessible at fair conditions and costs through the collaboration of the multidisciplinary consortium. This will be achieved through a Single Entry Point (SEP) which will be represented by Industrielle Biotechnologie Bayern Netzwerk GmbH (IBB).
Offering an open ecosystem, BIOMAC will focus on the creation and demonstration of novel manufacturing supply and value chains, where technologies that have been developed up to TRL 4-5 will be upscaled and validated to TRL 7, accelerating the process towards the market entrance. The OITB will also offer services that cover the assessment of regulation & safety, sustainability, circularity, and market potential among others with modeling, process control, standardization and characterization, accessible at fair conditions and cost. To do so, the OITB is going to be organized in four Hubs, namely the Pilot Plant Supreme Hub, the Validation Services Hub (VSH) where the services justify the feedstock, the technologies and the products (Quality Control Hub and Process Validation Hub), the Market Uptake Hub (MUH) that targets to support business perspective and legalization issues accompanied by the maintenance of the test cases, and finally the Value Chain assessment Hub (VCH) where the developed value chains will be assessed against economic and environmental criteria within the circular economy frameworks.
During the first 18 months of the BIOMAC project, the partners agreed upon the organizational structure of the ecosystem and prepared draft legal documents in order to set up the OITB. The BIOMAC portal (biomac-oitb.eu) was developed. Within the same portal, the BIOMAC Open Innovation Environment (OIE) is embedded, for the BIOMAC Data Manipulation & Storage for Consortium & SEP Members, as well as Open access capabilities, according to the Data Management Plan (DMP) provisions.
The Pilot Plant Supreme hub was created, and the Pilot Lines are almost completed and can meet the needs of the test cases. The pilot lines that can benefit from in line monitoring and optimization were identified and the prototypes are under development.
To setup and build a transversal supporting service mechanism, all preparatory actions for creating the Validation Services Hub (VSH), the Market Uptake Hub (MUH) and the (3H) Market Uptake Hub (MUH) were completed. A market analysis for each sector was carried out to define growth trends for bioplastics. To prepare for offering health and safety services, all the nanomaterials that will be used within the PLs of BIOMAC were identified. The minimum requirements to be met, concerning the health and safety in the workplace and environmental protection as well as the potential hazards and toxicological information were identified. The EoL management chains in the EU for biobased nanomaterials and bioplastic waste were reviewed, and mapping of EoL management strategies within the consortium was conducted. Preparatory work was conduced for the development of a Decision Support Tool (DST) for the assessment of the value chain developing based on biomass utilization towards different end uses. Key exploitable results (KER) of the of BIOMAC OITB service providers were refined and characterized, identifying their innovative potential, the contributions of each partner and their exploitation intentions. To deliver and organize the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection strategy, consortium feedback on IPR management aspects was gathered. A business plan for the BIOMAC OITB as a whole, focusing on the OITB's post-project sustainability was prepared.
To prepare for the implementation of the test cases, intense preliminary work was performed by conducting meetings and defining the value chains per test case. The result is that specifications and process flows have been defined for all five test cases.
The Pilot Plant Supreme hub was created, and the Pilot Lines are almost completed and can meet the needs of the test cases. The pilot lines that can benefit from in line monitoring and optimization were identified and the prototypes are under development.
To setup and build a transversal supporting service mechanism, all preparatory actions for creating the Validation Services Hub (VSH), the Market Uptake Hub (MUH) and the (3H) Market Uptake Hub (MUH) were completed. A market analysis for each sector was carried out to define growth trends for bioplastics. To prepare for offering health and safety services, all the nanomaterials that will be used within the PLs of BIOMAC were identified. The minimum requirements to be met, concerning the health and safety in the workplace and environmental protection as well as the potential hazards and toxicological information were identified. The EoL management chains in the EU for biobased nanomaterials and bioplastic waste were reviewed, and mapping of EoL management strategies within the consortium was conducted. Preparatory work was conduced for the development of a Decision Support Tool (DST) for the assessment of the value chain developing based on biomass utilization towards different end uses. Key exploitable results (KER) of the of BIOMAC OITB service providers were refined and characterized, identifying their innovative potential, the contributions of each partner and their exploitation intentions. To deliver and organize the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection strategy, consortium feedback on IPR management aspects was gathered. A business plan for the BIOMAC OITB as a whole, focusing on the OITB's post-project sustainability was prepared.
To prepare for the implementation of the test cases, intense preliminary work was performed by conducting meetings and defining the value chains per test case. The result is that specifications and process flows have been defined for all five test cases.
BIOMAC is expected to have a positive impact on the upscaling of nanoenabled biomaterials concepts in the EU. This will be enabled by offering open and upgraded facilities to European midcaps and industries at fair conditions and costs. Effective access to finance and uptake by industry will be facilitated through the digital interface and the dissemination and business exploitation plans, aiming to help increase the number of new SME users for existing test beds. BIOMAC will improve industrial process parameters and will accelerate the verification of materials performance by process control, modelling and simulation. To improve industrial productivity, reliability, environmental performance and durability, the tools and equipment used in processing demand less energy (per unit) for a much shorter duration relative to conventional pre-treatment and synthesis approaches.
The production of bio-based materials within BIOMAC doesn’t require the import of fossil-based materials since biomass is readily available in the EU, helping thus the release of the EU from dependence on fossil-based materials. BIOMAC is targeting a highly active and important economic area in terms of EU jobs. The innovation potential of the ecosystem will lead to the creation of novel products and services, and thus results in significant growth opportunities for the ecosystem members and end users. To help meet the Paris agreement goals, BIOMAC is performing LCA studies to support decision-making towards sustainable production. The activities of BIOMAC aim to contribute to the European midcap enterprises in a number of ways, inlcuding fostering collaboration amongst technology developers, towards enabling exploration of novel applications in different end-use markets, as well as increasing of knowledge of potential and awareness. Finally, by providing services and access to technologies for eco-friendly products capitalizing on wide and powerful social (consumer) trends and preferences and having a solid dissemination and communication plan, BIOMAC will inform and persuade BIOMAC’s audiences on safety and sustainability aspects of its technologies but also targeting to demonstrate performance and feasibility (including cost competitiveness) of the alternatives it offers, and thus establish high acceptance not only by the general public but also by industrial actors.
The production of bio-based materials within BIOMAC doesn’t require the import of fossil-based materials since biomass is readily available in the EU, helping thus the release of the EU from dependence on fossil-based materials. BIOMAC is targeting a highly active and important economic area in terms of EU jobs. The innovation potential of the ecosystem will lead to the creation of novel products and services, and thus results in significant growth opportunities for the ecosystem members and end users. To help meet the Paris agreement goals, BIOMAC is performing LCA studies to support decision-making towards sustainable production. The activities of BIOMAC aim to contribute to the European midcap enterprises in a number of ways, inlcuding fostering collaboration amongst technology developers, towards enabling exploration of novel applications in different end-use markets, as well as increasing of knowledge of potential and awareness. Finally, by providing services and access to technologies for eco-friendly products capitalizing on wide and powerful social (consumer) trends and preferences and having a solid dissemination and communication plan, BIOMAC will inform and persuade BIOMAC’s audiences on safety and sustainability aspects of its technologies but also targeting to demonstrate performance and feasibility (including cost competitiveness) of the alternatives it offers, and thus establish high acceptance not only by the general public but also by industrial actors.