VITO aims to further develop sustainable technologies with new lab building Earth
Research institution VITO in Mol has started construction of the new Earth lab building, which is to house numerous labs and pilot installations. In doing so, VITO aims to further pursue the development of the next generation of sustainable technologies.
The Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), with more than 1,200 employees, 800 of whom are based in Mol, is a major player in the field of sustainability research in Flanders, Europe and far beyond. In order to continue working on the development of sustainable technologies in the future, VITO started the construction of a new lab building on the site of the former coal plant.
That building, named Earth, should in the near future accommodate numerous labs and demo spaces for the development of new sustainable technologies. “If everything goes according to plan, the building will be commissioned in mid-2025,” said Inge Neven, CEO of VITO.
“This €65 million investment is essential to enable VITO to contribute to the accelerated transition to a sustainable future. The new infrastructure not only provides a more efficient working environment, in the labs and demo rooms the feedstock technologies of the future will be developed and scaled up into market-ready innovations.”
VITO CEO Inge Neven and Mayor Wim Caeyers unveil the name of the Earth building and the VITO Sustainability Park. – © Tommy Maes
Sustainability Park
After the geothermal power plant at the Balmatt site and the first demo hall for circular materials research, the Earth building is the next step for the VITO Sustainability Park. “In that sustainability park, we want to gradually group our infrastructure,” Neven says. “This will allow us to realize even more collaborations, where in addition to our own VITO teams, external researchers and companies will join forces to tackle the sustainability challenge.”
Sustainable materials and technology will also be used for the construction of the new lab building. Several of these are co-developed by VITO. Among other things, the building will be constructed in Carbstones, building blocks based on steel slag and CO². Before the official laying of the Earth building’s foundation stone, the project’s partners signed some of the building’s Carbstones.
The LignoValue pilot plant in the VITO geothermal building. – © Tommy Maes
"This €65 million investment is essential to enable VITO to contribute to the accelerated transition to a sustainable future. The new infrastructure not only provides a more efficient working environment, in the labs and demo rooms the feedstock technologies of the future will be developed and scaled up into market-ready innovations."
Pilot plants
Currently, VITO already has some pilot plants where sustainable feedstock technologies are being developed and can even already be produced on a semi-industrial scale. This is the case, for example, with the LignoValue pilot plant that is currently already active in VITO’s geothermal building. “This plant produces bio-aromatics for construction such as insulation materials, adhesives and coatings based on grass and wood waste,” explains expert Karolien Vanbroekhoven. “Normally those aromatics are extracted from petroleum, but so our plant can also extract them from biomass.”
Another example is Characterise to Sort, a sorting system that, with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence, better recognizes waste streams and thus sorts them correctly. “This is very useful, for example, for sorting collected batteries,” explains expert Kris Broos. “The Characterize to Sort system recognizes the composition of each battery and so can tell the different types apart.” The Characterise to Sort pilot plant will also have a home in VITO’s new Earth building in mid-2025.
The new lab building will be built on the site of the former power plant. – © Tommy Maes
Source: Gazet Van Antwerpen, Oct. 23, 2023
