Achema 2018: „Sustainability – renew, resource and rethink“
The Young Chemistry Network (JCF), the Young Business Chemists (JuWiChem), both part of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), and the European Young Chemists Network (EYCN) cooperate for a joint event at the ACHEMA 2018, the world forum and leading show for the process industries.
Our very own session “Sustainability – renew, resource and rethink” takes place on Monday the 11th June 2018 under the headliner ”Raw Materials & Alternative Feedstocks”. The session will host five international lecturers from chemical industry, toplevel sustainability research and even the United Nations, who will give the participants a deeper look into sustainability in chemistry, innovative solutions and future-oriented research and economics. Next to the interdisciplinary lectures a framework programm including a poster session and a discussion with the speakers for young researchers is organised to give you the chance of reviewing your own research focusing on the idea of sustainability.
Of course, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) is present on the whole Achema Event. You can find it in Halle 9.2, Stand B70. For further information, please visit http://www.gdch.de/achema.
Complete Event Program
Sunday – 10/06/2018 (Chemistry department, University of Mainz)
We live in a society with an increasing appetite for consumer goods but in a world that has limited resources. Our current linear economic model is based on the extraction of resources from the earth, processing to make articles and then use followed by disposal. Slowly but surely we are transferring our precious resources into environmental burdens – landfills and uncontrolled pollution such as plastics in the oceans. This is not an intelligent use of resources and is not sustainable. We must move to a circular economic model whereby resources are kept in short cycle uses and we must make those cycles efficient and safe. The methods of Green Chemistry should enable chemical reactions to be performed with non-hazardous substances, minimal energy and produce no waste. By combining Green Chemistry with the Circular Economy model we can aspire to achieve a truly sustainable society.1
The most interesting of the large volume wastes is bio-wastes including forestry and agricultural by-products, and food supply chain wastage. These can be seen as renewable resources and can form the basis of future bio-refineries gradually replacing petroleum-based refineries. To fully exploit the concept and make it widely useful while maintaining environmental advantage, we need to show that Green Chemistry lives up to its promises. This means the right technologies to extract the molecular value from the wastes and ensuring that future products from bio-refineries are genuinely green and sustainable. New, energy efficient green chemical technologies that can convert a wide variety of waste streams into valuable chemicals and energy include low-temperature microwave processing, benign solvent extraction and new bio-based platform molecules. The integration of thermo-chemical and bio-chemical technologies will also become increasingly important as we seek to increase the efficiency of biomass conversion and chemistry on fermentation broths is also an important challenge in this area.
A wide range of projects will be described to help illustrate how we can apply green chemical technologies to the valorisation of wastes. These projects are usually carried out in consortia often involving industry and on many occasions ranging across more than one country.2,3 Our new international green chemistry centres network (www.g2c2.greenchemistrynetwork.org) helps create multinational partnerships that can meet new opportunities for tackling global challenges.
Clark, J.H., Farmer, T., Herrero-Davila, L. and Sherwood, J., Green Chemistry, 2016, 3914-3934.
Durá, G., Budarin, V.L., Castro-Osma, J.A.,Shuttleworth, P.S., Quek, S.C.Z., Clark, J.H. & North, M., Angew Chem Int Ed Engl, 2016, 55(32), 9173–9177.
De bruyn, M., Fan, J., Budarin, V.L., Macquarrie, D.J., Gomez, L.D., Hallam, R., Farmer, T.J., Raverty, W., McQueen-Mason, S.J. & Clark, J.H., Energy Environ. Sci., 2016, 9, 2571-2574.
Dr. Christian Krüger (Sustainability Strategy Expert, BASF)
Chemistry Powers Sustainability
Global megatrends are requiring solutions for a sustainable development, where the chemical industry plays a key role. Therefore the chemical industry has established various sectorial initiatives on global, regional and national levels. A unique example for a national initiative is “Chemie3” in Germany – an alliance of associations and the union in order to lift the chemical industry to the next sustainability level. Starting from recent examples the current situation will be reflected. An outlook will be given how growth and sustainable development come together in the chemical industry.
Renewable Resources: Opportunities provided by the valorization of biomass, carbon dioxides and renewable electrical energy
Renewable carbon feedstocks such as biomass and CO2 present an important element
of future circular economy. Especially biomass as highly functionalized feedstock
provides manifold opportunities for the transformation into attractive platform chemicals.
However, this change of the resources requires a paradigm shift in refinery design.
Fossil feedstocks are processed in gas-phase at elevated temperature. On the contrary,
biorefineries are based on processes in polar solvents at moderate conditions to
selectively deoxygenate the polar, often thermally instable and high-boiling molecules.
Considering “green electrons” provided by renewable energy technologies, also
electrocatalytic processes become attractive as possible technology of a throughout
circular economy. Herein, challenges of catalytic biomass valorization, CO2 activation as
well as opportunities provided by electro-catalysis and the interface to biotechnology will
be discussed.
References
Delidovich, I., Leonhard, K., Palkovits, R., Energy Environ. Sci. 2014, 7, 2803.
Hausoul, P., Broicher, C., Vegliante, R., Göb, C. Palkovits, R., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.
2016, 55, 5597.
J. Holzhäuser, J. Artz, S. Palkovits, D. Kreyenschulte, J. Büchs, R. Palkovits, Green
Chem. 2017, 19, 2390.
Creating a circular bioeconomy – benefits an barriers
Great efforts are made to realize concepts for replacing oil and using renewable resources as starting material in biorefineries. Currently, biorefineries produce chemical base materials on an industrial scale from readily available sugar-or starch-containing plant components. However, these feedstocks only account for about 1% of the available plant biomass. The majority of available plant biomass, constitutes lignocellulose, which is currently inaccessible to conventional biorefineries and biogas processes. In future generating higher economic efficiency for biorefineries and biogas plants is important to ensure these operations can compete with the efficiency of oil refineries even in the absence of government subsidies. Further, it is desirable to increase the ecological efficiency of these operations in order to reduce the required agricultural land use and to improve the CO2 balance. All these claims could be achieved if hitherto waste products such as digestates, agricultural, food and municipal waste streams could be used as feedstock. Physico-chemical and biotechnological pre-treatment technologies, such as the LX process are being established, which would allow utilization of these feedstocks particularly for biogas plants and biorefineries.
Renewing and rethinking the global approach for the sound management of chemicals through SAICM
The ways in which we use chemicals can make the difference between environmental degradation and rich resources, between health and illness, between a thriving economy and one that is threatened by occupational exposure to chemicals and associate costs of disease. The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) provides a multi-sectoral framework for governments, NGOs, the private sector, intergovernmental organizations and academia to work together to protect human health and the environment from harmful effects of chemicals across the lifecycle of chemicals. The future of sustainable development – with an emphasis on equity, healthy livelihoods and well-functioning ecosystems and natural resources—is inseparable from the sound management of chemicals. The SAICM overall objective runs until 2020, presenting an opportunity to renew and rethink the global approach for the sound management of chemicals and waste.
As a member of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) you have the possibility to cover your travel costs by a travel grant for conferences. The only requirements are the membership at the GDCh and the active participation at the event, which in our case means submitting and presenting a poster at the sundays postersession.
You can download the form here: https://www.gdch.de/stipendien
Accommodation
Each participant is asked to book the accommodation on their own. The costs can be covered by the travel grant.
Transfer Mainz – Frankfurt and entry ACHEMA Mo – 11/06/2018
We will take the railway together on monday morning to arrive at Frankfurt Messe. The ticket will cost less than 5 € and the journey will take about 40 min.
The day-tickets to the ACHEMA will be organised and payed by the organisers to provide you the chance to look around and network at the ACHEMA fair in the morning.
The Young Chemistry Network (JCF), the Young Business Chemists (JuWiChem), both part of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), and the European Young Chemists Network (EYCN) cooperate for a joint event at the ACHEMA 2018, the world forum and leading show for the process industries.
Our very own session “Sustainability – renew, resource and rethink” takes place on Monday the 11th June 2018 under the headliner ”Raw Materials & Alternative Feedstocks”. The session will host five international lecturers from chemical industry, toplevel sustainability research and even the United Nations, who will give the participants a deeper look into sustainability in chemistry, innovative solutions and future-oriented research and economics. Next to the interdisciplinary lectures a framework programm including a poster session and a discussion with the speakers for young researchers is organised to give you the chance of reviewing your own research focusing on the idea of sustainability.
Of course, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) is present on the whole Achema Event. You can find it in Halle 9.2, Stand B70. For further information, please visit http://www.gdch.de/achema.