Tech pitches

Finding sustainable locations and implementing (more) sustainability in the logistics of your process, employees, products … is challenging and requires a lot information which is not easy to find and needs to be tailored to your business practices in order to give hands on advice and ideas on actions that can be taken. VITO is bringing together spatial data and processes them to readable, understandable, inspiring and revealing indicators in the form of a sustainability passport to find optimal locations for your business (hubs) and to find the best opportunities to incorporate more spatial sustainability into your business in order to minimize pains and optimize gains related to locations and logistics.

In many regions worldwide, including Flanders, water scarcity is a threat to our economy. As such, urgent measures are required to prepare Flanders and its companies for this. But how can companies do more with less water? For most enterprises, this is a rather difficult question to answer. Therefore, VITO developed the Waterbarometer. This intuitive tool gives companies insights into their water management and suggests concrete actions for optimization.

However, just suggesting actions is not enough to actually make the difference. The VITO WaterClimateHub team translates these ideas, together with technology suppliers and other actors into concrete implementations. VITO designs solutions that offer an answer to the economic challenges around water (re)use and loss, not only for companies but also for the agricultural sector, citizens and governments.

VITO collaborates with academic partners to host open-innovation test sites to validate new concepts of water management in a realistic, but controlled environment.

By integrating water expertise with energy, data visualization, sensoring and artificial intelligence, companies will be prepared for the water challenges of the 21st century.  

The VITO WaterClimateHub also looks outside the boundaries of a company and stimulates the cooperation between multiple companies. The development of business parks of the future, where water (and energy) can be shared between companies or where water buffering can be integrated with climate change adaptation and urban recreation or agriculture. The WaterProof project is one of the demonstration sites where VITO will act as a facilitator and accelerator.

Is your company working with water, is your company dependent on water or do you want to see how your company can be assured of having sufficient water that meets the required quality, feel free to contact the WaterClimateHub in Ostend. Let’s be prepared for the future.

To mitigate global warming the EU has set as ambition to evolve to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies will need to play a major role to reach this challenging target. In this technology pitch, the potential of innovative CCU technologies under development at VITO will be highlighted. The focus is on CO₂ capture from the atmosphere (Direct Air Capture) and from diluted flue gases by the use of innovative porous structured sorbents that can be regenerated at lower cost and with a lower energy penalty. The impact and benefits of a CCU value chain depend on the way the different CCU stages are coupled. This will be illustrated in the presentation by the coupling of the solid adsorption technology to mineral carbonation, which uses CO₂ to produce CO₂ negative construction materials. VITO has unique, longstanding expertise in the mineral carbonation field and has developed in collaboration with Orbix the Carbstone technology. 

Today, many recycling companies struggle with the value assessment of complex material/waste streams. The main issues are the costly and labour-intensive sampling procedures and subsequent chemical analysis, leading to long waiting times (often several weeks) and the associated financial uncertainty.

To counter this, VITO initiated the development of an in-line characterisation technology. This way, heterogenous and complex material streams can be assessed completely – eliminating the need for subsampling – and mass-balances can be produced ‘on-the-fly’. In fact, for each material particle a ‘digital twin’ is created which can be further assessed in a virtual way. In this technology, the heterogenous waste particles are dispersed on a conveyor belt as a mono-layer and scanned using X-rays, a 3D laser scanner and a colour camera. Using artificial intelligence, the device recognises the individual particles and assigns several important physical parameters: size, mass, shape, material, texture, etc.  

VITO is a leading R&D organisation in the field of lignin valorisation. We cover the value chain of using lignin from sourcing the feedstock, characterisation, fractionation, modification, depolymerization, purification up to the final application. Applications can be used in PU, epoxy resins, acrylic resins, phenolic resins and many more. Lignin fractions can also be applied as flame retardant, UV blocking agens, antioxidant and so on. The potential of using lignin is very promising. 

VITO is your partner in the valorisation of lignin in your applications.  

Down2Earth is a tool that on one spot quickly combines data and insights on the expected state of the near subsurface. In addition, a first evaluation is formulated based on available maps and data combined with VITO's expertise on the subsurface. The tool is intended for project planners who want to know better what the expected condition of the near subsurface is during preliminary investigations.

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the major wake-up calls ever, underlining the importance of a healthy indoor air quality (IAQ). Even though the WHO’s set of statements “The right to healthy indoor air” (2000) was agreed more than 20 years prior to the pandemic, never before has the worldwide political and societal interest in IAQ and ventilation been this significant.

Healthy IAQ is not limited to strategies to limit airborne virus transmission, although it is an important determinant. Dedicated source reduction strategies on the one hand intend to reduce indoor emissions of various chemicals, as well as particulate matter and biological agents. Exposure reduction strategies on the other hand intend to ventilate, aerate and clean air to such an extent that pollutant levels remain at levels that guarantee a healthy, safe and comfortable indoor environment.

VITO adds value for various actors related to the working environments such as architects, citizens, policy makers and facility managers by providing expertise in IAQ assessments and formulating dedicated recommendations.

Recently, VITO has set an ambition to demonstrate an innovative technology for the use of CO₂ as a feedstock in fuels and chemicals production, contributing to the ‘avoided CO₂ emissions’-strategies in the battle against climate change. This takes shape as a pilot that operates at ton-per-annum scale by 2024 and consists of a CO₂ electrolyser core, relying on only CO₂ and water, and making use of (renewable) electricity, in a flexible way. In 2021, this aspiration became realistic by VITO’s involvement in a large (20 M€) European Green Deal project, with 15 international top parties, covering the whole technology value chain and use case. The envisaged deployment at MW scale at the project’s end will require the development of a 50 kW system for modular purpose and its operation in an industrial-relevant environment. In this session, VITO will highlight the technology, its potential to mitigate CO₂ in a techno-economic feasible way and create impact as a sustainable strategy.

The EU’s commitment to reaching climate neutrality by 2050, as part of Europe’s Green Deal, will only be reached when we drastically transform our energy system. Within the Green Deal, hydrogen technology is considered essential in the energy transition towards a carbon neutral society. Especially in the chemical, steel and cement industry, and in heavy duty transport, green hydrogen produced through the electrolysis of water using renewable energy, is considered key in ‘defossilization’. To make green hydrogen competitive, the price of green electricity should further decrease, electrolysers should be made more cost-efficient and the economy of scale should do its trick lowering the production costs. VITO is actively bringing players across the value chain together to achieve this ambitious goal, merging expertise in developing new materials and components for electrolysis, with material suppliers, integrators and project developers.