SPRIND launches Circular Biomanufacturing Challenge

SPRIND recently launched a new Circular Biomanufacturing Challenge to advance additive manufacturing using material from waste products. The deadline for entries is September 17, 2023. The Challenge is a three-stage innovation competition for which projects, institutions and also companies can apply until September 17, 2023. In the first round, 8 teams will be funded with up to 1.5 million euros each.

Until now, our manufacturing processes have almost entirely been based on the use of newly, mined raw materials with not enough coming from the recycling of waste streams. This places an enormous burden on the environment and our society. In addition, dependencies remain in global supply chains that could be reduced through access to local materials.

Instead, we can create a circular economy in which new products are manufactured locally, using valorized waste streams as a source for raw materials, to build more sustainable and resilient production platforms.

To achieve this, biomanufacturing processes must be developed to market maturity and directly integrated with modern production processes. Scientific advances in recent years have produced new findings and methods that can significantly increase the performance of biomanufacturing processes and open up new application possibilities. Although alternative ways of producing a wide range of products to replace the conventional petrochemical or chemical manufacturing processes have gone to market, breakthroughs have so far only been achieved in niche applications. We need to reach the goal where the majority of bulk products are made through biomanufacturing processes that enable the use of locally available raw materials.

The challenge: to develop an end-to-end prototype that processes various carbonaceous waste streams into new products as a continuous bioproduction process.

The prototype must demonstrate how carbonaceous waste streams can be processed and fed to microbes as food. The overall bioproduction process shall not use E. Coli or Saccharomyces cerevisiae and shall demonstrate continuous production over a period of at least 180 days during the Challenge. At the end of the process, at least three different products should be produced using a modern manufacturing process, such as additive manufacturing.

Breakthrough innovations

The Challenge runs over a three-year period. A panel of globally recognized experts will assist SPRIND in evaluating the applications and select up to eight teams to participate. During the Challenge period, teams further develop their bioproduction technology to achieve the Challenge goal.

Teams participating in this Challenge are fully challenged. SPRIND therefore provides intensive and individual support. This includes funding the teams with up to €1.5 million in Stage 1 of the Challenge. In order to unleash the full potential, SPRIND also provides a coach to accompany each team’s work, advise them and network them. After one year and after two years, the jury reconvenes in each case to evaluate the interim status and decide which approaches have the greatest breakthrough innovation potential and which teams can prove themselves in the Challenge until the end.

More details on how to participate can be found here. SPRIND will host a webinar on the Challenge on July 28, 2023.