About – Sanovations
Sanovations started in 2001 as a consultancy company to advise companies directed towards biotechnology and the biobased economy that was just initiating. The first customer being AVEBE that I just changed for Wageningen University and Research.
During my professorship at Wageningen University I was allowed to cofound two start-ups: Grassa, developing grass biorefinery on small scale and Zeafuels to produced ethanol from corn and biogas from the residues, again at small scale. Later Zeafuels changed is name in Byosis devoting its activities on stripping of ammonia from biogas fermenters, since small scale ethanol production and sales was phased out by governmental regulations. In 2021 Byosis was sold to Nijhuis Solutions after Byosis had shown its technology on large scale in the international market. After official retirement from Wageningen University as a full professor of Biobased Commodity Chemicals and Valorisation of plant production chains, Sanovations started to acquire projects in the Netherlands and a broad to stimulate the biobased economy and later to also reduce the severe nitrogen problem in the Netherlands.
Em Professor Johan P.M. Sanders got his PhD Molecular Biology at Amsterdam University in 1978. He started as the first industrial genetic engineer in the Netherlands in 1977 at Gist brocades, now part of DSM. The first industrial enzyme alpha amylase was introduced in 1983 after FDA approval. Phytase, the enzyme that now reached the number two position after laundry protease was initiated in 1984 as was a successful project on protein engineering with PGS from Ghent that resulted in that half of the Gist brocades enzymes had improved properties 10 years after the start of the project.
In 1993 Sanders became research director of AVEBE in Groningen, the largest potato starch company in the world. In 2002 first a special chair was started on Valorisation of plant production chains, which was directed on the substitution of fossil products by their economical production on renewable raw materials. Biorefinery plays an important role in obtaining People, Planet and Profit at the same time. The chair was changed in a full chair in 2007 when it became clear that the biobased economy can play an important role in mitigating Climate Change.
Since 2014 various projects were done, first under the responsibility of Food and Biobased Research, part of the contract research part of Wageningen and since 2017 the projects were run by Sanovations. Sanovations now and then hires people to perform the projects.