Case studies Chemical Engineering and Chemistry 2015-2021

13 technology with respect to feedstock diversity, product yield and economic profitability in close collaboration with experts from industry. Societal impact In 2017, the ambitious goal of this project to realize the world’s first bio-refinery for lignin came a step closer. A first patent application was submitted and Vertoro, with Michael Boot as CEO and Panos Kouris as CTO, was founded along with an investment decision to construct a barrel-per- day pilot plant for the production of crude lignin oil (CLO). The rationale behind the patented CLO approach is to reduce the process severity and complexity such that solid lignin or lignin contained in lignocellulosic feedstock is converted into an oil which is amenable to further (catalytic) conversion to fuels and chemicals without consuming solvent and using supercritical temperatures (WO2019053287). A second patent application dealt with the upgrading of more abundantly available lignocellulose to a lignin-rich oil (WO2021064047). Along these lines, downstream processing patent applications were also filed, covering knowledge on the production of phenol (WO2019177458), alkylaromatics (WO2020234369) and heavy fuel oil (patent yet to be published). The close collaboration between the IMC group, Vertoro and InScitTe lednot only tonewknowledgeprotectedby patents but also tohigh-impact publications in international scientific journals and new research lines and funding (national and EU Horizon 2020) aimed at marine fuel applications and specific chemicals from the different CLO fractions. The availability of kg-scale samples using pilot-scale batch facilities has already attracted broad interest in what is now called the Goldilocks technology of commercial partners from the energy and chemical sectors. Most prominently, this led to an offtake agreement and substantial investment from shipping giant Maersk in 2021. The Dutch investment company SHIFT Invest provided additional funding, resulting in a total capitalization of nearly €10 M for Vertoro, which will be mainly used to construct a 1 kiloton-per-annum continuous demo plant. This plant will be realized at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus alongside the already running pilot batch reactor. The demo plant is set to be commissioned in August 2022 and will provide the necessary input for the design of the first commercial plant (aim: 10 kton/annum in 2025). The short-term impact of this technology will be on sustainable shipping fuels, while there are also many opportunities to convert Goldilocks into biobased chemicals for producing aviation fuels, polymers and construction materials with a much-reduced carbon footprint. As such, the story of Vertoro is exemplary of intensive collaborations between academia and industry that overcome the innovation valley of death between research and successful innovation.