The United Nations predicts that the world population will reach about 9 billion by 2050. The population growth will place a heavy strain on the supply of raw materials, such as oil and metals, and will constitute a challenge for sustainability and for the quality of life in urban areas, where an estimated 70% of the world population will live. 

Finding solutions is a major challenge, requiring pioneering multidisciplinary research and new partnerships. The ARC CBBC brings together the industrial and academic strengths available in the Netherlands in the field of catalysis, synthesis, macromolecular chemistry and process technology, therefore connecting various areas of interdisciplinary expertise at Dutch knowledge institutions with each other and with trade and industry at a national level. 

The consortium will focus on the chemical building blocks for producing the energy carriers, coatings and materials of the future. Will the sun and wind be the driving forces behind tomorrow’s chemistry? Is CO₂ not a threat, but in fact a source of new possibilities? What possibilities for making existing and new building blocks will be opened by sustainable production methods? 

Yesterday Eindhoven University of Technology, AkzoNobel, BASF, Shell, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Top Sector Chemistry, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Utrecht University and Groningen University presented their plans for setting up the new consortium. The ARC CBBC continues to build on expertise within the Gravitation programmes financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. 

Source: TU/e press team