2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

25 Federal Chancellor at opening of the Fraunhofer CBP in Leuna The Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Process- es CBP aims to close the gap between the lab and industrial- scale implementation of technologies for sustainable material utilization of renewable raw materials. After only 21 months of construction, the new Fraunhofer CBP complex was inau- gurated on October 2, 2012 in the presence of 350 guests drawn from industry, science and politics. The guest of honor at the gala titled “Shaping the Future with Bioeconomics” was German Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, who took the opportunity to visit the Central German BioEconomy clus- ter, where the Fraunhofer CBP is a center of innovation. In her ceremonial address, the Chancellor stressed that the opening of the Fraunhofer CBP on the eve of the reuniﬁcation celebrations was a sign of how a brilliant Leuna has emerged out of the drab chemistry site, offering good perspectives for the development of Central Germany. Besides host Professor Thomas Hirth, the speakers included Professor Reimund Neu- gebauer (who had assumed ofﬁce as Fraunhofer president only the day before), the minister-president of Saxony-Anhalt, Dr. Reiner Haseloff, as well as Professor Aldo Belloni, executive board member at Linde AG. On the same day, at the press conference, Linde and Fraunhofer signed a framework agree- ment for a strategic partnership. After her speech, Angela Merkel took a tour round the new process center and learned about the work of the Fraunhofer CBP and the leading-edge cluster. At the lignocellulose bio- reﬁnery module, project group manager Gerd Unkelbach ex- plained how the valuable materials lignin, cellulose and hemi- cellulose – or rather the sugars glucose and xylose that they contain – can be derived from waste wood. At the technical enzymes module, CBP and IGB staff described how the sugars obtained can be used as a substrate for biotechnological fer- mentations for producing a variety of chemicals, such as sur- factants and even enzymes. After the two-year expansion phase, there are now 19 em- ployees working at the Fraunhofer CBP. The new building with ﬂoor space of over 2000 square meters was planned by architects Scherr+Klimke of Ulm. It comprises a main build- ing containing ofﬁces, labs, pilot plant and media facilities, and a separate building with storage rooms for raw materials, auxiliary materials and ﬁnal products. Linde Engineering Dres- den GmbH was general contractor with responsibility for the technical aspects of the process engineering units, including the requisite infrastructure and media. Using the bioreﬁnery model, the various process plants are now available as mod- ules that can be operated separately or easily combined as re- quired for the development and scaling of biotechnological, chemical and combined processes. 1 2 2

2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

Pages