Insect Pilot Plant: One step closer to using insects as a sustainable resource
Insects can play a key role in the transition to a biobased economy. To research this untapped potential, VITO built the Insect Pilot Plant. In this pilot lab, we want to upscale insect breeding and processing to an industrial level. The expertise we gain from this is shared with various target audiences, such as insect breeders, companies with organic waste streams and the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. The more we move towards using sustainable resources like insects, the closer we get to a biobased economy.
Insects’ potential for a new value chain
Insects already have the potential to become the base of a new value chain. They feed on different kinds of organic waste streams. Then, they turn that into useful and high-quality resources, like proteins, fats and chitin.
We can use these sustainable resources in the food and feed industry or as a raw ingredient for biobased chemicals. That means that insects hold a huge potential for companies and governments, because insects will make them less dependent on finite and polluting fossil fuels.
A flexible and controlled research environment
Research into cultivating, harvesting and processing insects has been a part of Flanders’ scientific efforts for a while now. However, these projects were conducted on a lab scale, while practice called for pilot-scale expertise – as a stepping stone towards industrial production.
That’s why we built the Insect Pilot Plant, with the support of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and in collaboration with KU Leuven (Campus Geel) and Thomas More Kempen.
This flexible and widely applicable pilot initiative is a controlled and secure environment for research, demonstrative projects and the creation of biobased chemicals. Among other things, we look into the usage of residual streams as a breeding ground for insects, automation for the sake of cost efficiency and the segregation of biobased products.
This all happens in several rooms of different sizes where we continuously monitor the temperature, humidity and CO₂. We also have a separate harvesting room, for example.
VITO: the perfect partner in your search for sustainable resources
The flexible infrastructure of the Insect Pilot Plant provides an answer to the questions researchers and companies deal with. After all, we want to guide companies that are interested in the biobased economy. VITO helps companies and governments:
- by developing new biobased processes or testing new, green resources
- by providing answers to practical questions about insect breeding and processing
- by supplying biobased products for testing that were separated from insects after biorefinery.
