Purac Joins BE-Basic Consortium for Bio-based Economy

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.

24 Feb 2010 --- Purac, a CSM company, has signed 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 bio-based chemicals and contribute to a sustainable economy.”