CO2Chem conference leads to major EU grant award.

In September 2011, CO2Chem organised a one day conference at Newcastle University on ‘Using CO2 as a sustainable feedstock for the fine-chemicals industry’. This meeting coincided with the announcement by the EU of a call for proposals in the area of ‘CO2 conversion to fine chemicals’. The CO2Chem meeting was attended by 45 UK and European scientists and the networking activities led to the formation of a CyclicCO2R consortium led by the Dutch organization TNO and involving academic and industrial scientists from the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Iceland. The consortium subsequently submitted a proposal to the EU call and in November 2012 received the welcome news that the proposal would be funded to the amount of 3.8Million Euros. The four year EU grant will allow the consortium to work on the synthesis of glycerol carbonate from glycerol (a waste product from biodiesel production) and CO2. Glycerol carbonate is a fine chemical of growing commercial importance with wide ranging applications including as a solvent, chemical intermediate and ingredient in cosmetics and detergents. For more information contact Michael.north@ncl.ac.uk.