Introduction
The transition of our traditional economy based on fossil fuels towards a biobased economy will be
inevitable. Production, consumption, processing, recycling and disposal of biological resources need to
change. The increasing global population causes a rapid depletion of valuable resources, higher
environmental pressure and climate change. Therefore, a more innovative and resource efficient
society should be developed, which will make use of renewable resources for industrial purposes, while
ensuring environmental protection. Biomass as a renewable source will be implemented more and
more for the production of valuable compounds for industrial applications. The list of valuable
compounds from biomass is enormous. These compounds derived from cells can be used for the
production of pharmaceuticals, food and feed supplements, pigments, biopolymers, etc. Furthermore,
energy can be produced from biomass; methane from anaerobic digestion, bioethanol from sugar or
lignocellulose, biodiesel from oil seeds or algae. For the derivation of biobased products, biorefinery is
essential. Biorefinery should be done in an energy‐efficient way. The waste products of the biorefinery
processes can be upcycled in order to convert the waste into new products with a high value.
Therefore, waste from one process can be used for other processes with the aim to recycle nutrients,
energy and water.
The biobased economy can only succeed if the complexity of all processes are well‐understood and
brought into practice, with a society’s acceptance to innovative technologies.
Assignment
The assignment for the MOOC Biobased Economy is focusing on the society’s acceptance towards a
biobased economy. Therefore, you will work as a group together on building or designing a city driven
by a biobased economy, which should also be visible to the future inhabitants. You could name such a
city (with its surroundings) an autarkic city, where food, water and commodities are used, processed
and produced in a self‐sufficient way. The aim of the assignment is to get insight in the complexity of
the biobased economy, in which the production of biomass, biorefinery for the production of high‐value
chemicals and use of energy, water, nutrients and waste are linked to each other.
The requirements for the assignment are:
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You will work as a group.
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A design for an autarkic city (or biobased city) will be made for every weekly theme
resulting in a poster with padlet wall. In the forum, you can discuss findings and innovative
ideas. However, at the same time you can use the padlet wall to visualize these ideas and
create elements of which the biobased city should contain of.
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The main topics mentioned in the course, such as energy, biorefinery, biopolymers,
ingredients, nutrients, aquatic biomass (algae), sustainability and economics, will all be
worked at for a separate padlet wall. However, most of the topics are related to each other.
So, the padlet walls created later during this MOOC will be more integrated with the
different topics.
Special attention should be paid to the scale of the city and surroundings, locations for
production (agricultural land, rooftops, industrial area), innovations (which new techniques
will put into practice?), use and re‐use of biobased products, waste management and
economical profit.
The padlet wall should be clear on how this can be realized. Therefore, text should be
informative, clearly written and logical on how the processes are linked.
Planning for the group assignment
- 1st week: You can already see a padlet wall, which is a blank format. What are your (common) ideas
about elements that should be present in the biobased city? You can already place some ideas on
your wall: write/sketch/draw/hyperlink (or photos of a drawing) these ideas.
‐ 2nd week: Biorefinery is the theme. Which products do you want to make? What kind of industry is
needed? What kind of processes are involved? Try to connect your existing energy program from last
week to this biorefinery.
‐ 3rd week: Energy is the theme of this week. So decide how the energy city needs will be fulfilled. For
example, solar energy, biogas from digestion of organic waste, biodiesel from oil containing crops or
algae, bioethanol from grass/plants containing carbohydrates/cellulose. Think also about what the
impact of your choices is on the environment. Try to think about several options to get energy
instead of one big power plant for example. A new, blank padlet wall is available for this theme.
‐ 4th week: Biopolymers is the theme. What kind of polymers are needed for which products?
Playground equipment of children’s playgrounds, like seesaws (or teeter‐totter), swings, etc., can be
made from bioplastics for example.
‐ 5th week: The weekly theme is nutrients. Nutrients are needed for growing the biomass. Where do
the nutrients come from? From wastewater from industry or from households? How can you recover
nutrients in a biobased city and for which application you want to re‐use the nutrients?
‐ 6th week: Algae is the theme. Give algae a role in the biobased city. Where can they be produced, on
which waste streams, for what kind of products? Try to connect this to the biorefinery theme and
energy theme.
‐ 7th week: The theme of this week is natural compounds. So you can now focus more on which kind of
products can be made from biomass. Give examples in the group assignment, for example health
products, cosmetics, etc.
‐ 8th week: Sustainability and economics. Use the padlet wall of this week to create a nice sketch of the
city (divided in suburbs or locations for the green industry). Relate the different topics with
illustrations or short text boxes. You can also zoom into a building, where you can show how you can
use a building for producing biomass, where the biomass is refined, and finally used by the
inhabitants. Also how the waste is used can be mentioned. An idea would be to have a sketch of a
city, a sketch of a building inside the city and a further ‘zoom‐in’ of the processes involved.
No assessment, rather a visualization of the discussion on the forum
The padlet walls will not be peer‐reviewed. However, as mentioned before, the group assignment of
creating a biobased city by using padlet walls is to visualize your innovative ideas and learning from
ideas of other people. A discussion on a forum can of course also broaden your views, but this group
assignment is meant for stimulating your creativity. Furthermore, you will help the course lecturers
and entrepreneurs with a new vision on a biobased society.