On June 13th a group of twenty three PhD candidates from all over the Netherlands travelled to Avantium in Amsterdam (Zekeringstraat) for a company visit organised by the NIOK PhD Platform (NPP).
The day started off with a couple of interesting presentations, first up: the CTO of Avantium himself, Prof. Gert-Jan Gruter, on the general vision and aims of Avantium. Then Marlene Fuhrer talked about Flowrence and gave us a feel on what it means to be a project leader at Avantium. Daniel Weinland explained the YXY technology used to form renewable polymers, and Eric Schuler showed how Volta is working on electrochemical conversion of CO2. Then, Nienke Leenders and Vasilis Papadopoulos presented their PhD projects, Nienke about using the DAWN technology for biorefining textiles and Vasilis on the production of PEF precursors via a biochemical pathway
After a delicious lunch, it was time to see where the science takes place. We were shown around the labs to see the technologies in action. All in all, a very educative and interesting day!
