To keep pace with a rapidly changing world, the chemical industry will have to reinvent itself, says Bert Weckhuysen, scientific director of the ARC CBBC consortium. Here, they are already studying various routes towards a sustainable, circular industry. But the chemistry field also needs to reflect on its role. ‘We chemists need to think more about how we can reinvent ourselves to stay relevant.’
‘We used to do mainly environmental catalysis: trapping and breaking down NOx, SOx and VOCs [volatile organic compounds, ed.]. Catalytic converters in car exhausts were the prime example; lectures on catalysis always started there’, says Bert Weckhuysen, Professor of Catalysis, Energy and Sustainability at Utrecht University. ’But that was before electric cars got on the rise. Our focus is now shifting to “Planet Earth catalysis”, meaning clean air, clean water and clean earth. Removing CO2 is one aspect, but so is cleaning up PFAS and reducing nano- and microplastics. And, of course, circularity. Presently, we tend to think mainly of carbon, but we should also be looking at all the other elements in the periodic table. So, there is plenty of work ahead of us.’
‘Circularity should become an integral part of the way we make our everyday products’
At the end of 2015, Weckhuysen, together with Ben Feringa from the University of Groningen and Hans Kuipers from Eindhoven University of Technology, initiated the Advanced Research Centre Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC). The main objective was (and still is) to perform groundbreaking research into new building blocks for sustainable materials. The three “founding” universities provided the research infrastructure; ‘hubs’ for research in, respectively, catalysis, organic synthesis and process engineering. Shell, BASF and AkzoNobel (including the later established companies Nouryon and Nobion) joined as industrial partners. The Dutch national government also contributed through its research funding agency NWO and the former Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. A yearly budget of €11 million was pledged for two five-year periods. With the end in sight, the question now is how to continue ARC CBBC — what should be the priorities, partners and funders?
Design for circularity
There is no doubt that ARC CBBC should continue, according to Weckhuysen. In the spring of 2024, he and his colleague Eelco Vogt sketched their idea of the “Refinery of the Future” in Nature. A refinery that supplies a similar product range compared to a conventional oil refinery, but without fossil carbon as feedstock or energy source. Their conclusion: it is possible, but some serious chemical research is required to make it happen.
That is even without considering the imperfections of the current product range. ‘If you aim to move towards circularity, it actually means that your products have to be designed to be recycled’, argues Weckhuysen. ‘Chemically, you have to put them together in such a way that you can simply take them apart afterwards, so to speak. We can already recover metals like nickel or cobalt from smartphones, but otherwise it’s mainly carbon that the field is focusing on. But you should also be able to recycle nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur separately in a more sustainable and less polluting way than what is currently done in mining. This is not really a topic at the moment. Circularity should become an integral part of the way we make our everyday products, and of training and education as well.’
‘We need to maintain a manufacturing industry in Europe’
Whether the current industry is on board with this vision remains to be seen. But eventually they will come around, predicts Weckhuysen. ‘Catalytic converters came about because consumers no longer wanted to live in smoggy cities. I can also imagine that at a certain moment, people will no longer accept pollution in products. And then, manufacturers will start to take more responsibility for their role in society.’ And what if they don’t? The current REACH regulation focuses mainly on the toxicity of individual ingredients and that is also the case for version 2.0, which is expected soon. But Weckhuysen foresees a REACH 3.0 in the near future that will go much further: ‘In 2050 or 2070, I think we will be able to read from a track-and-trace code on every product whether it contains toxic or scarce components, how it scores in terms of circularity, and even which factory the plastic used came from. Even if it is, for example, manufactured in China or Brazil. Factories could be judged using labels, like an A or an E label, just as we see now for food products. That could have a lot of consequences for the way we produce and consume.’
New combinations
In any case, it is essential that the chemical industry is not driven out of the EU because of excessive costs, says Weckhuysen. He advocates strategic autonomy: ‘To ensure that, we need to maintain a manufacturing industry in Europe and not just turn it into a service economy.’ But the industry will have to reinvent itself to meet the changing demand. ‘About a hundred years ago, the chemical industry connected itself to the car industry’, explains Weckhuysen. ’It is still focused on fuels. But now that the car industry takes a different direction and switches to batteries, the chemical field needs to consider new combinations. For example, teaming up with the steel industry, cement production or agro-food. Perhaps the refinery of the future will also be the farm of the future. There are all kinds of options for the future. And they will require all kinds of new chemistry. We need to think more about what those futures exactly imply for our industry and how we can reinvent ourselves to stay relevant.’ Which means there is still a lot of work to be done for a consortium like ARC CBBC. ‘I think it is still useful and necessary to invest in sustainable chemistry, where catalysis and materials play an essential role. There are still huge challenges that are not being addressed in current research programmes.’
‘At a certain moment, people will no longer accept pollution in products’
Less rigid
The future of the consortium is “work in progress”. The current set-up is quite unique: three universities form the core, but the principal investigators, now numbering around 35, are not necessarily affiliated to one of these three. They are all selected on personal merit and track record. The consortium’s scientific advisory board, consisting of renowned international researchers, decides who can become a member. Research questions, some of which stem from industry, are distributed among the members, based on which group is best equipped to deal with that particular question.
According to Weckhuysen, this process has worked well so far, although he would like to make the organisation a little less rigid. ‘We need to consider whether this approach should be maintained. We want to avoid a completely open competition, where only a very small percentage of proposals are granted. That would only lead to frustration. And you don’t want researchers to spend a lot of time putting together their own small consortia, as is often the case with Dutch National Science Agenda [NWA, ed.] calls. The advantage of ARC CBBC is that the consortium with the industrial partners is already in place. The downside is that it may be perceived as being closed off. We need to do something about that.’
‘You still need hard chemistry at the end of the day’
Student motivation
In addition, the changing interaction between chemistry and society also forces the consortium to stay connected to current developments. Weckhuysen points to what motivates his students: ‘There are still many who are interested in hardcore physical or analytical chemistry, but there are also students who are motivated to make our planet a better place to live. Students who state that the fossil industry is “ancient” chemistry and that they don’t want to learn about that anymore. And students who don’t want to work on projects in collaboration with companies active in oil and gas exploration. This group also deserves appropriate curricula and research projects. Although it should remain clear that in order to really achieve something, you still need hard chemistry at the end of the day.’
In his view, the scope of ARC CBBC should also be expanded. Knowledge about product toxicity, for example, is beyond the expertise of the current members and will have to be sourced elsewhere, from (veterinary) health departments or institutes specialized in public and environmental health. ‘I think we can no longer study sustainability and circularity from a purely chemical perspective. We have to elaborate our viewpoint, but how exactly is still under discussion. Over the next months, we will be consulting with a range of parties to see how we can take this further.’
Creative funding strategies
One thing that will certainly have to change for the next phase of ARC CBBC is funding. ‘At the moment we are too dependent on industry and government funding’, argues Weckhuysen. And since government funding has become unpredictable, it is time to explore other, more creative paths. ‘I would like to get family offices and foundations interested in the issue. In the US, for example, but also in Denmark, there are already independent foundations that believe it is important to invest in circular and sustainable chemistry. And in the US, you also see that alumni are contributing financially. I’m not talking about crowdfunding for a few tens of thousands of dollars, but at least a few million. But in the Netherlands and Belgium we are not there yet.’
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