Nova-Institute (Huerth / Germany; www.nova-institute.eu) and Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (Ghent / Belgium; www.bbeu.org) have sealed a strategic partnership to offer industrial companies and research institutes an all-around service for the development of new bio-based products from original concept to scale-up as well as economic and environmental analysis of the business prospects.

Services are planned to include the choice of feedstock, life cycle analysis, market strategy, development of a scalable process, production of a first sample material for application testing and custom manufacturing at pilot scale.

The development of products from sustainable resources and processes too often fails to step out of the research laboratories, nova’s managing director Michael Carus pointed out, explaining the rationale for the partnership. Bio Base managing director Wim Soetart said joining forces with the German institute will add techno-economic and environmental expertise to his business’ extensive experience in bio-processing.