SPICY

Beet sugar (sucrose) and wheat-based sugar (glucose) from Northwest Europe and especially Flanders are globally competitive, creating a unique feedstock position. In contrast to bio-based fuels, the use of sugar for chemicals is insignificant when compared to food. Moreover, the added-value and margin is very significant compared to bio-ethanol. Nevertheless, to replace petroleum by bio-based chemicals, novel value chains should be created, which is often challenging and needs a combination of players from agricultural and chemical sectors around innovative technologies leading to both drop-in and novel products. 

Goal

This SBO project intends to synthesize a pool of platform chemicals, like 2,3butanediol, lactic, muconic and levulinic acid, via (bio)chemical routes from sugar, which will be further converted via innovative chemocatalytic approaches into drop-in (butadiene, acrylonitrile) and novel (dienes, acids) polymer building blocks suited for polymerisation to inventive bio-based plastic and rubber materials.