Joint UK-Norwegian team to develop industrial biotechnology plant 06 January 2012

The British and Norwegian governments are to work together to support nine R&D projects that will create new processes capable of generating high-value chemicals while cutting carbon emissions, through industrial biotechnology and bio-refining.

The Technology Strategy Board has offered grant funding totalling £1.82 million to the nine UK-led projects, and four of these will also be supported by Innovation Norway, which is providing funding of £400,000 to the Norwegian businesses taking part.

"Industrial biotechnology can help the chemical industry move away from a dependency on oil to a future based on renewable and biological substances," comments David Bott, director of innovation programmes at the Technology Strategy Board.

"Through these projects, we are helping innovative British businesses to develop early-stage biotechnology projects into pilots, and to turn pilots into commercially viable processes," he explains.

The four full-scale collaborative R&D projects are being led by Chirotech Technology, Ingenza and Unilever. Meanwhile, the five feasibility projects will run under Aquapharm Biodiscovery, Biocatalysts, Centre for Process Innovation, C-Tech Innovation and GlycoMar.

The projects will look at how industrial biotechnology and biorefining can be competitively applied to producing high-value chemicals and Bott expects collaboration between industrial biotechnology developers, higher education institutions and the chemicals sector.

Innovation Norway's involvement follows the signing in 2011 of an agreement between the UK and Norway that encourages UK-Norwegian projects incorporating industrial biotechnology and/or bio-refining.

"We believe that industrial biotechnology can contribute significantly to the shift from a chemical industry based on oil to one based on renewable and biological substances," states Bott.

Brian Tinham

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