RSA CE&C 2015-2021 Group descriptions

Chemical and Process Technology (CPT) 17 5. spin-off activities – Vertoro, founded in 2017 as a spin-off of the SMK group of Eindhoven University of Technology, raised €4.5 M in equity and another €4.5 M in non-dilutives (e.g., NWO Take-off, H2020, REACT EU grants) over the period 2017-2021. The technology to convert residual agricultural and forestry residues into a lignin-rich oil platform (Goldilocks®) is presently at TRL 6. A TRL 8 demonstration plant is under construction and will be commissioned in Q3-2022 at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Geleen, the Netherlands. The main investors in Vertoro are LIOF, Brightlands Venture Partners, SHIFT Invest andMaersk Growth, the corporate venturing arm of the shipping giant. A >€20 M follow-up investment round is planned for 2022, which will serve to finance the first TLR 9 commercial-scale plant in the port of Rotterdam. The valorization of our research involves four distinct routes: 1. Direct knowledge transfer to industry , specifically through bilateral or consortia projects, joint publications with industry and frequent lectures in the chemical industry. In the evaluation period, eight patents have been filed that were derived from collaborative work with companies. 2. Knowledge transfer through spin-off companies. Two successful spin-off companies are closely related to the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis group. Hybrid Catalysis (www.hybridcatalysis.com ) offers custom catalyst synthesis and screening, providing complementary expertise and services to those of IMC. Vertoro (www.vertoro.com ) is a recent spin-off company focused on the valorization of the lignin part of biomass using a technology basis developed in the IMC group. 3. Valorization through people . The specific mix of fundamental and applied frontier research in IMC prepares our MSc and PhD graduates for a career in academia and industry by providing them with the latest valuable knowledge, skills and capabilities in catalysis, inorganic chemistry and engineering. 4. Valorization through products . Several PhD projects led to the construction of advanced testing equipment/protocols, which are now used in the chemical industry and in other universities (e.g., specific operando cells for trickle-flow operation in X-ray cells). The theoretically oriented work involves code development, which leads to specific software used in both academia and industry. Some of the developed software codes are integrated in commercial software suites, like those of SCM (www.scm.com – Software for Chemistry & Materials). Another example is software development with Tagworks Pharmaceutical (see, for instance, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142 (2020) 10955-10963 ). The economic quality in terms of impact and valorization is evident from the strong industrial network built up over the past decade. The important chemical companies and institutes which are partners of the IMC group are: Shell (Shell Research and Technology Center Amsterdam), SABIC (the Netherlands and Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), BASF (the Netherlands and Germany), DSM (the Netherlands), Mitsubishi Chemicals (Japan), Croda (the Netherlands), SASOL (South Africa), Johnson-Matthey (United Kingdom), Shenhua/CHN Energy (China), Alliander (the Netherlands), ECN/TNO (the Netherlands), VITO (Belgium), the National Institute of Low-Carbon Energy (NICE, China), the Cardiff Institute of Catalysis (United Kingdom) and the Institute of Catalysis (Hokkaido, Japan). The industrial partners collaborate with IMC in bilateral projects or via public-private partnerships and are actively engaged in regular progress meetings or user committee meetings.