Under the guidance of Pauline Drost I’ve been teaching at the University of Applied Science Van Hall Larenstein for the minor International Business and Natural Resource Management for 4 years now. And last year we decided to test the framework (Systemic Sustainable Design Thinking) I’ve been working on to work in the student’s consultancy assignment.
Together with RijksUniversiteit Groningen and the stakeholders our students were tasks to create a circular value chain for PHA. It turned out we were able to identify various new valorisation opportunities within the PHA production, with the potential to bring down the cost of PHA with minimal 50%. If this would be correct, PHA will already be able to compete with existing fossil polymers (plastics).
The article “De oneindige perspectieven van PHA uit rest- en afvalstromen” is currently only available in Dutch.
I’m grateful for this first co-authorship in the academic community.
A special thank you goes to assistant professor Dr ir Jerke W. de Vries creating this readable article. And also the guidance of Janneke Krooneman (RijksUniversiteit Groningen) for their in-depth PHA knowledge and our students Willemijn van der Zwaard, Merel Molenbuur en Thijs Kotterlink for their research. The research is part of the Bio Economy Region Northern Netherlands – BERNN (https://www.bernn.nl/).
