SPICY

TO DEVELOP A TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM FOR SUGAR VALORISATION

The Flemish Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) approved the cSBO project SPICY, which stands for “Sugar-based chemicals and Polymers through Innovative Chemocatalysis and engineered Yeast”. With a subsidy of over 2.5 million euro from the budget for cluster projects, a consortium consisting of KULeuven, UGent, UHasselt, VITO, VIB and Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant will work on the development of a technology platform for the valorisation of sugar.

The main aim of SPICY is to provide chemical industry with new or optimized processes to convert sugars into added value compounds, i.e. both drop-ins and novel biobased chemicals. Two complementary lines are hereto developed in parallel, one focusing on biotechnology based on improved yeast-strains and one based on chemocatalytic routes.

This cluster SBO project was created within the “Renewable Chemicals” program of Catalisti, the cluster for chemistry and plastics, with an emphasis on the strategic topic “Sugar”. The project is coordinated by Prof. dr. Bert Sels from KULeuven – COK, with support of Catalisti.

Project lead:

• KULeuven

Project partners:

• UGent
• UHasselt - imo-imomec
• Vito
• VIB
• Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant

More information can be found on the project website.