What we do

RECIPE: In Flanders, the transition toward bio based chemistry is a key innovation focus. VITO supports this by developing functional bio aromatics from lignin, a renewable alternative to fossil based ingredients in materials like adhesives and resins. These bio aromatics offer potential advantages in functionality and reduced toxicity. Since 2018, VITO has built two pilot plants, LignoValue Pilot and PILLAR II, with support from EFRO and Moonshot LSI, located at its dedicated pilot site in Mol. The RECIPE project adds new pilot infrastructure for (1) large scale solvent removal (≥50 kg/h) and (2) chemical modification of lignin based molecules using a flexible 100 L reactor. This end to end pilot platform from lab to demo scale helps accelerate the development and industrial uptake of sustainable innovations in the Flemish chemical and manufacturing sectors. (2025-2028)

HIBISCUS: The construction sector is the EU’s second largest industrial ecosystem, generating 11.5% of Gross Value Added in 2023. However, it is also responsible for up to 37% of global energy and process-related CO2 emissions. The HIBISCUS project, coordinated by SOPREMA and 11 partners, aims to replace fossil-based materials in building envelopes with innovative bio-based alternatives. By converting various feedstocks, the project will deliver five bio-based construction solutions: two for waterproofing, two for insulation, and one for carpentry, with an average of 80% bio-based content and a 25% improved environmental footprint. Pilot-scale validation will prove industrial feasibility. Within five years post-project, HIBISCUS aims for CE compliance and 10% market share. The project supports EU leadership in sustainable construction and circular economy practices. (2025-2029)

CIRCULAR-C: CIRCULAR-C is a demand-driven R&I project that aims to transform the biobased chemical sector for construction by developing circular, sustainable adhesives, coatings, and fibres for wood panels (used in flooring, insulation, furniture). These innovations use reversible chemical bonds and Digital Product Passports (DPPs) to enable recycling and traceability. The project will convert mixed biomass residues into high-performance cellulosic materials and fire-retardant, bio-based formulations. Industrial validation and life-cycle tracking will ensure market readiness. By 2038, CIRCULAR-C aims to scale production to over 88 kt/year, enabling applications in 75,000 homes, generating €114M revenue, creating 381 jobs, cutting hazardous chemicals by 75%, and reducing GHG emissions by up to 100%, supporting the shift to climate-neutral construction. (2025-2029)

MOT2 RECYCLEX: Recyclex tackles one of the biggest challenges in textile recycling: the presence of elastane and dyes in fabrics. With only 1% of Europe’s textile waste recycled into new products, this project introduces breakthrough technologies to change that. Recyclex combines KU Leuven’s patented optical detection system for elastane with a novel depolymerization process that selectively removes elastane from polyester, using fewer chemicals and enabling simultaneous decolorization. VITO enhances this with process intensification, solid catalysts, and selective sorbents to create a scalable, continuous recycling process. Covering the full textile value chain, Recyclex aims to transform “unrecyclable” waste into valuable raw materials. As EU regulations tighten, this innovation is a timely and essential step toward a circular textile economy in Flanders and beyond. (2025-2029)

3D4WALL: The 3D4WALL project explores 3D concrete printing and the development of energy-efficient, circular wall elements with automated insulation placement. By uniting experts in 3D printing technology, circular concrete materials, insulation methodologies, energy transfer, automation, and robotics, the project aims to create innovative, integrated solutions that contribute to sustainable construction. Research objectives include reducing material consumption, enhancing energy efficiency through integrated insulation in 3D-printed structures, and promoting circular material use via demountable panels and adaptable walls for renovations and new buildings. Over time, this project seeks to introduce new sustainable concrete and insulation materials, 3D-printed demountable elements, and energy-efficient, structurally optimized designs. The research outcomes will support diverse applications in the construction sector, driving the shift towards a more sustainable built environment. (2024-2026)

SBO Win-CE: Win-CE aims to develop an innovative chemical recycling process for end-of-life (EOL) wind turbine blades (WTB), achieving the simultaneous and complete valorization of both inorganic glass fibers and the organic resin matrix. The process involves two steps: (1) mild solvolysis, ensuring efficient separation of inorganic glass fibers and organic resin, followed by (2) selective catalytic ammono-/aminolysis, converting the collected resin into valuable aromatic di- and triamines. The research incorporates novel catalytic and process intensification strategies to enhance productivity at lower temperatures, preserving the intrinsic fiber properties for higher reuse value. For the first time, this unique method seeks to co-valorize the matrix as amine curing agents, key compounds in WTB composite production. Scalability, techno-economic, and sustainability performance indicators will guide the process, identifying the most promising reprocessing and valorization routes for various composite applications. (2024-2027)

CIRCOPLAST: CIRCOPLAST aims to boost the circular economy by improving the recyclability of plastics containing flame retardants, significantly reducing environmental impact. While plastics are essential to modern life, their end-of-life treatment remains a challenge. Recycling helps conserve finite resources and reduce landfill waste and greenhouse gas emissions. However, plastics contaminated with brominated flame retardants that do not meet REACH standards are often incinerated or landfilled instead of recycled. CIRCOPLAST addresses this issue by introducing an innovative technology to remove these harmful substances from plastic waste. The project demonstrates how these “difficult” plastics can be transformed into valuable raw materials, drastically cutting plastic waste and supporting a more sustainable, circular plastics economy. (2024-2028)

JTF: C-RECYCLE: C-Recycle is a pioneering initiative that combines cutting-edge chemical recycling technologies with education and training to support the transition to a circular chemical industry in West Brabant. Funded by the Just Transition Fund (JTF), the project empowers professionals, students, and businesses through hands-on research, on-the-job training, and collaboration with leading institutions. Companies gain access to advanced technologies like pyrolysis and solvolysis, while students and teachers benefit from updated curricula and lab-based learning. C-Recycle also supports start-ups and raises public awareness of chemical recycling. By bridging innovation and education, C-Recycle strengthens the regional chemical sector and prepares a skilled workforce for a sustainable future. (2024-2026)

BBBC: LEGACY: Bisphenol A (BPA) is widely used in epoxy resins but poses health and environmental risks due to its endocrine-disrupting effects. The LEGACY project seeks to replace fossil-based bisphenols with biobased alternatives for heavy-duty construction applications, focusing on lignin—a renewable, abundant biopolymer rich in aromatic structures, ideal for high-performance materials. Through treatment, depolymerization, and chemical modification, lignin will be transformed into advanced coatings tailored for industrial flooring systems. These coatings will undergo rigorous testing, particularly on concrete, to assess adhesion and resistance to radiation, moisture, and chemicals. Abrasion tests will ensure that hazardous substances do not leach from the materials. A safe and sustainable-by-design assessment will continuously identify improvement areas, ensuring durability and ecological responsibility. The goal is to develop coatings that meet industry standards while reducing reliance on chemicals of concern. Following successful validation, the project will move toward scaling up production, contributing to the transition to circular and sustainable construction materials. By advancing scientific innovation, LEGACY aligns with global efforts to promote sustainability and minimize environmental impact. (2024-2026)

BBBC: SSbD4SME: The Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Union has developed a framework to define Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) criteria for chemicals and materials. The SSbD4SME project aims to create an accessible digital tool enabling SMEs to conduct safety and sustainability assessments. Users can score new or developing products based on SSbD principles and compare them with existing ones. The tool integrates multiple modules that assess safety and sustainability aspects outlined in the JRC framework. It connects to a proprietary database of sustainable alternatives, employs targeted questions, uses smart web searching via RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), and links to relevant databases. The outcome provides individual scores per aspect and a final SSbD classification. The software features modules for chemical hazard assessment, human health and environmental evaluation, and sustainability analysis. The project first explores SME needs and minimal requirements before defining software architecture and specifications. Module development follows the major SSbD framework steps, integrating a database of sustainable alternatives into a single tool. Beta testing with SMEs ensures usability. Results will be disseminated through various stakeholder channels, supporting broader adoption. (2024-2026)

LigninPLUS: The LigninPLUS project, expands the LignoValue Pilot infrastructure to accelerate the development of bio-aromatics from lignin. Building on previous initiatives (EFRO Flanders and Moonshot LSI), this project enhances pilot-scale capabilities to demonstrate innovative lignin conversion processes. Lignin, a natural component of plant cell walls, holds great promise as a renewable alternative to fossil-based aromatics used in resins, plastics, and coatings. Through LigninPLUS, VITO invested in advanced equipment to improve material handling, safety, and scalability, including lab-scale replicas for rapid troubleshooting. This expansion strengthens Flanders’ position in sustainable chemistry, bridging the gap between lab research and industrial application, and enabling faster market introduction of bio-based innovations. (2023-2024)

PESCO-UP: is a Horizon Europe project that aims to transform polyester-cotton textile waste into high-quality polyester and cotton materials for reuse in textiles to enhance the textile recycling value chain and reduce the industry dependency on virgin materials. The project includes innovative approaches for digitalized material identification, data sharing, and advanced sorting systems and the project targets up to 90% material processing efficiency through efficient chemical and mechanical separation methods. As part of a consortium of 19 partners, we focus on the technology development for upcycling of the polyester fraction towards polyurethane materials for textiles. Additionally, VITO will contribute to the techno-economic assessment on the novel PESCO-UP technologies to gain insights on the economic viability of the proposed concepts and provide recommendations for further research activities towards demonstration. (2024-2028)

CIRCOPLAST: this project aims to develop an innovative extraction technology to remove brominated flame retardants from plastic waste. After all, by also reusing these "difficult" to recycle plastics as new raw materials, the amount of plastic waste can be drastically reduced. A second important pillar in the project is the development of a new generation of polymer formulations based on the recycled building blocks on the one hand and sustainable bio-based building blocks on the other. In this second pilot project, bio-based lignin building blocks will therefore be used to produce a new generation of polymers and flame retardants. (2024-2029)

UPSTREAM: UPSTREAM delivers Circular and Bio-Based Solutions for the Ultimate Prevention of Plastics in Rivers Integrated with Elimination And Monitoring Technologies. It aims to overcome challenges related to the monitoring, prevention, elimination, and valorisation of litter (L), plastics (P), and microplastics (MP). Demonstrating a suite of 14 solutions addressing pollution at every step in the water system, connected to 7 rivers in 5 countries, will enable the co-creation of an extensive database of knowledge and sustainable business models with a focus on making information as widely accessible as possible. The involvement of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) owners, industrial partners with existing supply chains, innovative SMEs, and a water cluster association will ensure exploitation of the project solutions. The UPSTREAM consortium will thus establish circular value chains with the potential to decrease plastic litter by 50% and MP pollution by 30%. (2023-2027)

DigiLignin: Digitalization tools are expected to speed-up PU systems design with respect to properties and processes. To do so, structure-property relations and process models must be developed from theory rather than extensive experimentation. The DigiLignin project addresses these challenges of lignin-based PU design by creating a model that could predict the structure-property relationships via a combined Machine Learning (ML) and quantum mechanical (QM) modelling approach. This ML-QM model will be considered as a robust digital building block to facilitate and speed-up the design of lignin-PU.  Overall, DigiLignin promises to rationalize the design of lignin-PU and to accelerate the commercialization of more sustainable materials with lower carbon footprints. In the future, the predictive model could be extended and shared via user-friendly apps with PU users for a wide range of applications. DIGILIGNIN is a FWO project, awarded the Bioeconomy Label by Vlaio, where VITO, UHasselt and Maatsricht University closely work together. (2023-2024)

CHRONICLE:  Develop a novel chemical recycling approach to process rigid polyurethane (PU) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) end-of-life materials. By using selective depolymerization, we will transform these wastes into valuable building blocks to produce more sustainable materials, guaranteeing in this way a high carbon circularity. To secure the sustainability of the new technological route, CHRONICLE will also have a strong value chain management supported by techno-economic and life cycle assessment. CHRONICLE will link waste providers and recyclers, with downstream chemical companies and PU producers, resulting in an optimized value chain with enhanced circularity, new economic opportunities and new synergetic partnerships. CHRONICE is a part of the Moonshot program, where VITO, KUL and UA join forces. (2023-2027)

FIREFLY: The FIREFLY project is the pioneering research initiative set off to drive the catalyst-based chemical industry towards electrification and to reduce external reliance on metals and fossil fuels. The current production of metal-based catalysts relies mainly on procedures that are not sustainable, as they intensively consume chemicals and non-renewable energy, under harsh operating conditions. The FIREFLY concept uses electricity issued from RES to manufacture (electro)catalysts from secondary resources, in a new sustainable approach that will significantly reduce production costs. The initiative continues the path to circularity, introducing more profitable routes for the chemical industry by using mainly spent, waste, and off-specifications catalysts from different industrial applications, including lignin depolymerization. (2023-2027)