BIZENTE NEWSLETTER Issue number 4, May 2022
BIZENTE: MOVING FORWARD
BIZENTE keeps advancing! In the last 6 months, BIZENTE partners have been working hard and great advances were achieved. Novel enzymes have been successfully expressed, resins have been successfully modified and the first degradation tests have been carried out. The first steps towards the scaling up have been performed, although we are at the point of concentrating efforts to make it a reality. On the exploitation side of the project, we were selected by the EC to be part of the programme Horizon Results Booster. An expert guided us in defining and developing our KERs (Key Exploitable Results) so the project can have a strong societal impact.
On the 4th of May the consortium had their month 24 meeting in order to show the progress, exchange ideas and decide the next steps to move forward towards our objectives.
In this issue you will find an article about the degradation process for recycling durable resins that BIZENTE is developing and an interesting interview with Prof. Frank Hollmann about the molecular weight model compounds investigated by the Delft University of Technology within the framework of the project.
Enjoy the reading!
BIZENTE IS DESIGNING AND INNOVATIVE DEGRADATION CHAIN FOR RECYCLING DURABLE RESINS
The main goal of BIZENTE project is the development of a recycling process addressed to thermoset epoxy and polyester-based polymers. The chemical and mechanical characteristics of this kind of materials favored their application in a wide range of different sectors, thanks to their unique features such as lightweight and flexible design. At the same time, their durable lifetime represents a limit when these polymers are addressed toward their disposal.
In this frame, BIZENTE has designed an innovative degradation chain developed on materials such as DION®IMPACT9102, Araldite®LY1568, Hewflow®RTM6 and R930A, which are used as reference substrates for developing this new recycling technology.
“BIZENTE opens up an important application for ligninases to contribute to a more sustainable Europe. It is exciting being part of such a bold endeavor”
Frank Hollmann studied Chemistry (University of Bonn, Germany) and received his PhD from the Swiss Federal University of Technology (ETH Zurich) in 2004 with Andreas Schmid and Bernard Witholt as promotors. After a postdoctoral stay with Manfred Reetz (Max-Planck Institute for Coal Research, Germany) and some years as R&D manager at Evonik Industries (Essen, Germany). He joined the Biocatalysis group of the Department of Biotechnology at the Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) in 2008.
11th Conference of R&I EU Framework in Spain
BIZENTE was selected to participate and present a poster of the project to more than 800 attendees in the event organised by the CDTI together with the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the EC.
S3 – 4th European Eco-plasturgy Congress
Aitiip organised a webinar within the S3-4th European Eco-plasturgy Congress in which BIZENTE was presented to an audience of experts, scientists and researchers as an example of the potential of enzymes to resolve end-of-life issues of thermoset composites.
BIZENTE organises a joint workshop in SUM 2022
Under the title “Sustainability of thermoset materials, BIZENTE organises a worksop in the SUM 2022 (Sixth Symposium on Circular Economy and Urban Mining).Check SESSION D04 on 19th May 2022 in the programme.
