Sustainable Industries

From the European Green Deal to UN Sustainable Development Goals, industry and society are pursuing a new path of closed loops. But how to put this revolution into practice? How do you convert waste streams into new resources? Where are the opportunities and where to start? We are happy to investigate this with you.

Examples

• Remanufacturing of existing parts, e.g., of machines and engines.
• Characterisation, extraction, and valorisation of by-product or waste streams, e.g., with Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE) or supercritical CO2 extraction.
• Optimisation and greening of existing chemical reactions and processes.
• Development of new (green) analysis techniques and optimisation of existing techniques.
• Chemical analyses (HPLC, LC-MS, GPC, GC-FID, GC-MS, FTIR, AAS, ICP, NMR).

Interested in a partnership? Send an e-mail to jeroen.geuens@kdg.be 

Mobility and energy are no longer considered separate clusters. We investigate new energy carriers such as hydrogen, methanol, and batteries, to understand what works for mobility and energy. This includes anything from multi-fuel injection systems for engines to the development of electric powertrains and all their combinations.

Communication is also becoming increasingly important, partly due to increasing electrification. How can you make all these new systems communicate with each other intelligently? We focus on vehicle communication between different components and systems, such as the CAN bus in e-bikes, passenger cars, trucks, and marine engines.

Examples

• Testing of fuels, additives, and lubricants.
• Electrification of powertrains.
• Measurement of emissions in internal combustion engines under load.
• Analysis and reverse engineering of CAN bus systems.
• Simulations of subsystems on the CAN bus.

Interested in a partnership? Send an e-mail to kris.martens@kdg.be

Data is everything in research. But how do you get access to the data you need? And how do you turn this into tools and insights that can be used to improve business processes? We span the entire spectrum in this field of research, which is reliant on data from our chemistry and mobility research, among others. We can set up complete pipelines from data acquisition with IoT devices, data transformation, and statistical (AI) analysis, to user-friendly end-user software. 

Examples

• Automated processing of chemical analyses with AI-based tools and software.
• Solving mobility issues using vehicle data from e-bikes, cars, trucks and shipping, among others.
• We develop industrial Internet of Things (IoT) systems with a wide range of sensor data, including gyroscope, accelerometry, PM10, PM2.5, NOx, and GNSS position data using 4G/5G connections.

Interested in a partnership? Send an e-mail to remco.vanschadewijk@kdg.be

Jeroen Geuens
Head of research centre
jeroen.geuens@kdg.be
+32 3 502 22 16
+32 472 23 79 72

Kris Martens
Coördinator and researcher renewable energy and mobility
kris.martens@kdg.be
+32 474 91 79 05

Remco van Schadewijk
Coördinator and researcher data science in industry
remco.vanschadewijk@kdg.be
+32 3 613 10 58  

Maarten Bartels
Researcher
maarten.bartels@kdg.be  

Kristof Ceustermans
Researcher
kristof.ceustermans@kdg.be

Joppe Demulder 
Researcher
joppe.demulder@kdg.be

Els D’Hondt
Research associate
els.dhondt@kdg.be  

Winke Van der Gucht
Researcher
winke.vandergucht@kdg.be

David Van Hoecke
Researcher
david.vanhoecke@kdg.be

Wim de Keyser
Researcher
wim.dekeyser@kdg.be

Jonathan Put
Researcher
jonathan.put@kdg.be  

Ben Roels
Researcher
ben.roels@kdg.be

Hannes Sels
Researcher
hannes.sels@kdg.be

Herwig De Smet  
Researcher
herwig.desmet@kdg.be  

Ann Vermoesen
Researcher
ann.vermoesen@kdg.be  

Carolien Vermeiren
Researcher
carolien.vermeiren@kdg.be  

Annelore Wens
Researcher
annelore.wens@kdg.be  

• Verbiest J.R.; Bonnechère B.; Saeys W.; Van de Walle P.; Truijen S.; Meyns P.; Gait Stride Length Estimation Using Embedded Machine Learning. Sensors. 2023, 23 (16), 7166.
• Perlein, A.; Bert, V.; Fernandes de Souza, M.; Gaucher, R.; Papin, A.; Geuens, J.; Wens, A.; Meers, E. Phytomanagement of a Trace Element-Contaminated Site to Produce a Natural Dye: First Screening of an Emerging Biomass Valorization Chain. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11 (22), 10613.
• Szabóová, M.; Záhorskỳ, M.; Gažo, J.; Geuens, J.; Vermoesen, A.; D’Hondt, E.; Hricová, A. Differences in Seed Weight, Amino Acid, Fatty Acid, Oil, and Squalene Content in γ-Irradiation-Developed and Commercial Amaranth Varieties (Amaranthus Spp.). Plants 2020, 9 (11), 1412.
• Sels, H.; De Smet, H.; Geuens, J. SUSSOL—Using Artificial Intelligence for Greener Solvent Selection and Substitution. Molecules 2020, 25 (13), 3037.
• Pazdur, Ł.; Geuens, J.; Sels, H.; Tavernier, S. M. F. Low-Temperature Chemical Synthesis of High-Purity Diacylglycerols (DAG) from Monoacylglycerols (MAG). Lipids 2015, 50 (2), 219–226.
• Geuens, J.; Sergeyev, S.; Maes, B. U. W.; Tavernier, S. M. F. Catalyst-Free Microwave-Assisted Conversion of Free Fatty Acids in Triglyceride Feedstocks with High Acid Content. Renew. Energy 2014, 68, 524–528.
• Geuens, J.; Sergeyev, S.; Maes, B. U.; Tavernier, S. M. Influence of the Free Fatty Acids, Water, Temperature, and Reaction Time on the Catalyst-Free Microwave-Assisted Transesterification of Triglycerides with 1-Butanol. Energy Fuels 2013, 27 (5), 2637–2642.
• Turner, J.; Pearson, R.; Harrison, P.; Marmont, A.; Jennings, R.; Verhelst, S.; Vancoillie, J.; Sileghem, L.; Pecqueur, M.; Martens, K.; Edwards, P. Evolutionary Decarbonization of Transport: A Contiguous Roadmap to Affordable Mobility Using Sustainable Organic Fuels for Transport. In Sustainable Vehicle Technologies: Driving the Green Agenda.; 2012; pp 71–88. 
• Keune H.; Springael J.; De Keyser W.; Negotiated complexity: framing multi-criteria decision support in environmental health practice. American journal of operations research.-Irvine, CA, 2011, currens. 2013;3:153-66.
• De Keyser W.; Springael J.; Why Don't We Kiss!?: A Contribution to Close the Gap Between Real-world Decision Makers and Theoretical Decision-model Builders. Asp/Vubpress/Upa; 2010.
• Pecqueur, M.; Ceustermans, K.; Huyskens, P.; Savvidis, D. Emissions Generated from a Suzuki Liane Running on Unleaded Gasoline and LPG under the Same Load Conditions; SAE, 2008. 
• Geuens, J.; Kremsner, J. M.; Nebel, B. A.; Schober, S.; Dommisse, R. A.; Mittelbach, M.; Tavernier, S.; Kappe, C. O.; Maes, B. U. Microwave-Assisted Catalyst-Free Transesterification of Triglycerides with 1-Butanol under Supercritical Conditions. Energy Fuels 2008, 22 (1), 643–645.