Yvonne van der Meer

• Professor
• Professor at Maastricht University

Introduction With the continuous increase of plastics production, it is imperative to carefully examine their environmental profile through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). However, current LCA modeling is not considering the potential impacts of plastic emissions on the biosphere. To integrate plastic emissions into LCA, characterization factors are n...

Seaweed, despite making up half of the biomass in the sea, has not been utilised to its potential historically. However, there is growing awareness of seaweed as a resource for biobased products with environmental advantages, such as CO2 sequestration. This recognition is driving efforts to cultivate seaweed and develop the infrastructure. In a wor...

As the Circular Economy (CE) moves up in the agenda of research, policy, and businesses, understanding its impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) becomes more important. This research analyzed the potential impact that 27 circularity strategies have on each of the 17 SDGs and their associated 169 targets. The results suggest that CE str...

Sugar beet pulp, a byproduct from sugar beet refining, is used by farmers as fertilizer or sold as animal feed. Both options underestimate the potential of sugar beet pulp as a platform to produce specialty and bulky chemicals as a promising pathway for sustainable biochemicals – mind the pulp. This study proposes a biorefinery concept to produce f...

The transition to a bioeconomy is one of the ambitions of the European Union for 2030. Biobased industries play an essential role in this transition. However, there has been an on-going discussion about the actual benefit of using biomass to produce biobased products, specifically the use of agricultural materials (e.g., corn and sugarcane). This p...

Developing a biobased chemical industry that copes with the current environmental challenges relies on understanding the influence of the different stages of the value chain on economic and environmental performance. This paper investigates the use of a life cycle optimization framework to assess trade-offs between environmental and economic criter...

Developing material flow models of waste and recycling streams can be crucial to determining the inefficiencies of post-consumer plastic packaging recycling systems. Currently, there is no such material flow model of beverage carton packaging waste in The Netherlands because beverage carton management is inherently difficult to measure and calculat...

Methanol is considered to be a viable option for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in shipping, the second-highest emitter after road freight. However, the use of fossil methanol is insufficient to meet climate change targets, while renewable methanol is yet unavailable on a commercial scale. This paper presents a novel biorefinery concept ba...

The transition from a fossil-based to a biobased chemical sector requires developing technologies to produce biobased chemicals that can replace the current market needs already supplied by fossil-based chemicals. Terephthalic acid is an important monomer for producing polyethylene terephthalate typically used to manufacture plastic bottles and tex...

This paper presents systematic analysis of value creation chains and their economic and environmental hotspots within a multi-product biorefinery with the primary goal to promote sustainable biorefining. Lignocellulosic biorefinery producing ethanol, crude lignin oil (CLO) and electricity was analysed. The methodology involves transformation of tec...

Circular Economy (CE) is gaining traction among academics and stakeholders; however, there is no unified framework on how to assess it. This paper proposes a framework that is composed of two segments. The first segment includes circular processes based on the value retention stages of products and systems on different levels. The second segment co...

Bioplastics are considered a sustainable alternative to (partly) substitute fossil-based plastics. Nevertheless, it is still uncertain if the use of biomass for the production of bioplastics can mitigate the environmental impact of fossil-based plastics and simultaneously provide economic benefits. An optimization model is proposed to design biobas...

The transition to a low-carbon economy is one of the ambitions of the European Union for 2030. Biobased industries play an essential role in this transition. However, there has been an on-going discussion about the actual benefit of using biomass to produce biobased products, specifically the use of agricultural materials (e.g., corn and sugarcane)...

Sustainable development is an integrated approach to tackle ongoing global challenges such as resource depletion, environmental degradation, and climate change. However, a paradigm shift from a fossil-based economy to a bio-based economy must accomplish the circularity principles in order to be sustainable as a solution. The exploration of new feed...

Life‐cycle inventory (LCI) is a fundamental phase in the quantification of the environmental performance of products. However, when it comes to the LCI of a multi‐product system, discussions about the choice of the appropriate methodology to allocate environmental impacts still continue. A further system subdivision and the implementation of a mech...

Non-technical summary To decrease the negative impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on human health, governments have implemented wide-ranging control measures. Moreover, they were urged to tackle a new challenge in energy policies to supply a new form of demand derived from new lifestyles of citizens and different energy consumption patterns. This...

This paper gives an overview of development of the EU-bioeconomy, 2014–2020. The Vision of the new Circular Bio-based Economy, CBE is presented: Unlocking the full potential of all types of sustainably sourced biomass, crop residues, industrial side-streams, and wastes by transforming it into value-added products. The resulting product portfolio co...

Clothing is one of the primary human needs, and the demand is met by the global production of thousands of tons of textile fibers, fabrics and garments every day. Polyester clothing manufactured from oil-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the market leader. Conventional PET creates pollution along its entire value chain—during the production...

Considering the advantages and vast use of FRs in different sectors, there are serious concerns regarding negative impacts of FRs on the human health and the environment as we are exposed to FRs throughout our lives. Nonetheless, FRs are usually neglected in the studies on the environmental impacts of polymers with life cycle assessment (LCA). Firs...

The hydrogenation of levulinic acid (LA) to γ-valerolactone (GVL) using the η⁴-(2,3,4,5-tetraphenylcyclopentadienone) ruthenium tricarbonyl precursor of the well-known Shvo catalyst and H2 pressure was established under solvent-free conditions to achieve 100% conversion and 100% selectivity within 5 hours. Kinetic reaction curves were measured in o...

With a view to boost practical implementation of lignin conversion technologies, this paper assesses the availability of industrial lignin and evaluates pricing strategies applicable to multi-product biorefineries. The biorefineries, producing either denatured ethanol or sugar hydrolysate as a main product, can yield 43% and 61% of lignin residue (...

This article proposes a multicriteria approach and a decision support system to support multimodal transportation planning decisions by considering transportation delay, costs, and carbon emissions. The methodology is implemented into CarbonRoadMap, a web-based application that allows a decision maker to browse through the set of Pareto-optimal pat...

Biotechnological processes are typically perceived to be greener than chemical processes. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to compare the chemical and biochemical synthesis of lactones obtained by Baeyer–Villiger oxidation. The LCA is prospective (based on experiments at a small scale with primary data) because the process is at an early...

In the field of construction, wood products are known to have environmental benefits in comparison with materials like steel and concrete, especially to mitigate climate change. Since wood is an anisotropic material, comparisons with other building materials on a volume functional unit basis, such as a cubic meter of product, are not relevant. Wood...

This paper focuses on the potential impact of various options for decarbonization of public bus transport in Stockholm, with particular attention to electrification. An optimization model is used to locate electric bus chargers and to estimate the associated carbon emissions, using a life cycle perspective and various implementation scenarios. Emis...

Research in the area of bio-based materials aims to achieve breakthroughs in bio-based materials development. A novel way is presented to organise bio-based materials research with a value chain approach in which sustainability research is integrated in the research program. This research approach has been implemented in the Aachen-Maastricht Insti...

The sulfidation mechanism of supported NiW hydrotreating catalysts is described in detail based on literature data and experiments for carbon- and alumina-supported NiW catalysts. It is more difficult to convert tungsten oxides to WS2 than molybdenum oxides to MoS2 and therefore typical sulfidation procedures tend to result in oxysulfidic tungsten...

The influence of the preparation method and sulfidation conditions on the structure and activity of ASA-supported NiW catalysts was investigated by a combination of 57Co Mössbauer emission spectroscopy (MES), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), and thiophene hydrodesulfurization (HDS) activity measurements....

Sulfided NiW and CoW catalysts supported on activated carbon and alumina were characterized with 57Co Mssbauer emission spectroscopy (MES) and EXAFS at the W–LIII edge. NiW catalysts were studied with MES by probing the Ni atoms with 57Co. MES results demonstrate that the Ni–W–S phase is present in sulfided NiW catalysts. Formation of Co9S8-type ph...

While hydrodesulfurization (HDS) is a process that has already been used for over 50 years and has received large attention in the literature, the world-wide trend towards ultra clean fuels has renewed the interest in HDS catalysis research. EU regulations with respect to fuel specifications involve reduction of the sulfur content in diesel from 35...

Supported Mo–sulfide catalysts were structurally characterized by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic oxygen chemisorption (DOC), and EXAFS. The catalysts show the well-known MoS2 slab structures with a multilayered morphology in the case of Mo/SiO2 and Mo/ASA. The MoS2 edge dispersion was evaluated from the TEM micrographs. Wh...

The effect of the degree of W sulfidation on dispersion, morphology, thiophene hydrodesulfurization (HDS) activity, and promotional behavior for supported Ni(Co)W sulfide catalysts was studied by varying the calcination temperature, sulfidation temperature, sulfidation pressure, and support. The catalysts were characterized by thiophene HDS, X-ray...

Currently the production of low sulfur diesel fuel (<0.05 wt.% S) is an important topic in oil refineries due to new environmental legislation. Consequently, alternative catalysts for deep HDS processes are required and NiW/γ-Al2O3 catalysts are a promising option. An important issue in the application of NiW/γ-Al2O3 catalysts is their activation....