Objective
Vegetable oils are among the most prominent biological raw materials for non food uses at the moment: The world production of natural fats and oils amounts to 96 million tons. Around 12 million tons are used in different non-food applications, such as surfactants, lubricants, paints, coatings or biofuels. In Western Europe, official and industrial sources estimate that between 1,7 and 2,7 million tons of natural fats and oils are used in the chemical-technical sector. The European Union is one of the main oilseed producers and crushers in the world. Non-food production on set-aside land amounted to 650.000 ha oilseeds in 1996.
The European Commission and several Member States have realized the importance of this sector and support research and development activities in the whole production and processing chain of vegetable oils. However, European vegetable oils have only a minor share of the current industrial utilisation To find new market outlets for these oils in existing and new applications, requires a better co-ordination of research efforts and more exchange of information on a European level.
This project has the following objectives:
1. Linkage of R&D activities on national and EU level related to the production and utilisation of vegetable oils in the chemical-technical sector.
2. Identification of industrial needs in this sector, in an effort to increase the utilisation of European vegetable oils in established and new applications.
3. Determination of ecological benefits of vegetable oil based products, in relation to petrochemical products.
4. Definition of future research needs in the field of chemical-technical utilisation of vegetable oils.
The major means to achieve the objectives will be sectoral workshops, including experts from all European countries, as well as coordinators from relevant EU and nationally funded projects. The following sector groups, consisting of experts from universities, research institutes and industry, are envisaged: - New applications for vegetable oils (e.g. Plastics). - Valorisation of by-products, especially glycerol. - Genetic engineering, biotechnology and industrial oilseed crops. Results of these workshops will be published as working papers. In addition, the project will be promoted on Internet and linked with other EU funded networks, such as NF-2000 and IENICA.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringtribologylubrication
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturegrains and oilseedsoilseeds
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturehorticulturevegetable growing
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterialsbiofuels
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Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CON - Coordination of research actionsCoordinator
18276 Gulzow
Germany