BioMatNet Item: National Activities - Denmark - Research and development activities 1997

[BioMatNet Database - Non-EC Activities]

National Activities - Denmark
Research and development activities 1997

To find similar Items, click on a keyword below:
Biocomposites/Boards : Biopolymers/Gums : Bulk Chemicals : Fibre : National Activities - Denmark : Solid Biofuels : Solid Wood Products : Starch : Vegetable Oil/Fat : Wood (Lignocellulose)

Research and development activities 1997 - The Non-Food Secretariat, Denmark

Introduction
The non-food Secretariat forms part of the Danish Non-Food Centre, that was established in 1992, following a decision by the Danish Parliament. It was established, primarily, to handle the overall management, planning and development of non-food agricultural production and to develop plans for research and development in the area. In addition to the Secretariat, the centre comprises an inter-departmental committee of senior officials from the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Fisheries, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Ministry of Education and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Business and Industry. The Secretariat (established in 1994) provides administrative services for the Non-Food Research Committee and acts as adviser on non-food matters. It also takes initiatives to establish scientific networks, compilations of research in areas of relevance, initiates conferences and so on. In addition a research committee, with representatives from the research community and industry, was established in may 1995. A recent report, detailed below, provides both a report from the Non-Food Research Committee for 1997 and details of the non-food activities from which the following information is abstracted.

Strategy and action plan

As background for setting strategy and an action plan, a survey was carried out in spring 1995, of all public-funded non-food R&D. It was found that although there were many groups investigating this area, the distribution of projects by product type was uneven, with a disproportionate emphasis on biomass for energy projects. Only a few of the projects involved international collaboration, and international funding of projects was limited. This led to evolution of an action plan , published in 1996, to substitute non-renewable resources with renewable resources, part of which was the setting up of a new research programme.

R&D programmes

The activities fall into three areas as detailed below, covering renewable resources for industry, energy crops and life cycle assessment.

Increased Use of Renewable Resources for Industrial Non-Food Applications

This research programme that will run from 1997 to 2000 was approved in 1997 with a budget of DKK 40 million over four years. The programme aims to contribute towards efforts to meet increasing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products as well as primary producers' needs for new markets. The overall objectives are:

to develop environmentally friendly, bio-based products with market potential
to develop environmentally friendly industrial production systems and processes based on biological raw materials
to increase the utilisation of the production potential in the primary sector.

The following six projects have been launched under the programme:

Bio-based food packaging materials (DKK 11.0 million)
Development of biological hydraulic oils based on rape oil (DKK 1.5 million)
Development of cooling/lubricating agents and metal working oils on the basis of vegetable oil (DKK 2.5 million)
Evaluation of natural plant protection agents from oil seed crops (DKK 1.5 million)
Improvement of the suitability of potato starch as a non-food raw material (DKK 11.0 million)
Plant fibre products - defibration, short fibre composites and long fibre composites (DKK 12 million).

Energy Crop Programme In the spring of a demonstration and development programme on the Production and Application of Energy Crops was initiated with a budget of DKK 11 million to run for four years. The programme has received DKK 6.5 million from Grants for Product Development for Agricultural and Fishery Products, DKK 4.5 million from the Energy Agency's Development Programme for Renewable Energy and DKK 1.0 million from the Product Development Scheme for Forestry and Wood Working Industry. The objective for the programme (started in September 1997) is to develop and demonstrate optimum financial and environmentally sustainable ways of producing energy crops for fuel purposes for local use and in combined heat and power plants. The aim is to develop a sound, practical knowledge base for decision makers on the incorporation of biomass from energy crops in the future energy supply in Denmark.

Life Cycle Assessment of Products based on Renewable Raw Materials In the strategy and action plan it was proposed that life cycle assessments should be made for renewable raw materials. This project on life cycle assessment of products based on renewable raw materials was carried out from July 1996 to June 1997, funded by the Product Development Scheme for Agriculture and Fisheries Pro-ducts, the Danish Directorate for Development. The objectives of the projects were:

to draw up guidelines for life cycle assessments of products based on renewable raw materials from forestry and agriculture
to make life cycle assessments of two products based on renewable raw materials (chain saw oil and bookshelves)
to compare these with products based on non-renewable resources.

Three oils for chain saws were compared:

rape chain saw oil based on oil extracted by hexane extraction (AO)
rape chain saw oil based on oil extracted by an enzyme-based aqueous extraction (Bioraf)
mineral chain saw oil.

For the environmental impacts assessed, the rape chain saw oil from AO turned out to have the highest environmental impact due to the persistent toxicity of hexane. The second highest environmental impact was caused by the mineral oil reflecting a high net CO2 release. The rape chain saw oil from Bioraf caused minimal environmental impact compared with the other oils.

In the life cycle assessment of bookshelves, a Montana bookcase produced from medium density board (MDF) was compared with a steel bookcase. The result of the analysis was slightly surprising in that the potential environmental impact was greatest from the MDF bookcase. The main reason was that the environmental impact from the surface treatment of the bookcases is relatively high as the paints are based on organic solvents.

Contacts

Coordinator