1.2 Million tons of mixed plastics arise from Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) treatment in Europe and this quantity is still growing. WEEE plastics often contain undesired additives that hamper recycling in Europe. 75% of WEEE is currently exported to Asia where it is recycled to secondary plastics containing undesired (hazardous) substances or ending up in landfill where leaching occurs. Hence for WEEE plastics a closed loop solution is needed. PLAST2bCLEANED’s aim is to develop a recycling process for WEEE plastics in a technically feasible, environmentally sound and economically viable manner. To fulfil this aim, PLAST2bCLEANED addresses the recycling of the most common WEEE plastics acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and high impact polystyrene (HIPS) that contain up to 20wt% brominated flame retardants (BFR) and up to 5wt% of the synergist antimony trioxide (ATO). PLAST2bCLEANED will close three loops: (1) polymer, (2) bromine, and (3) ATO. Key technologies developed within the project are: (1) improved sorting of HIPS and ABS that contain BFR from other polystyrene and ABS fractions; (2) dissolution of WEEE plastics in superheated solvents; (3) separation of additives to concentrate BFR and ATO fractions for recycling; (4) energy efficient recovery of solvent and of polymer. The developed technology will be integrated in a pilot facility with capacity of 2 kg/hr (TRL 6) delivering polymer samples. The developed technology can be applied to similar waste streams from other sectors, e.g. automotive. The combination of improved sorting and use of superheated solvents offers an economic and environmental advantage. First calculations indicate a sound business case.The consortium is well equipped to develop this technology and consist of partners to cover the whole value chain.

In 2017, EU GHG emissions, including emissions from international aviationEurope has successfully reduced its GHG emissions since 1990 levels. The pace of reducing CO2 emissions is positive, however it is projected to slow after 2020 resulting in difficulties to achieve EU’s reduction target of 55% by 2030 as planned in the European Green Deal. Additional measures and policies are foreseen in EU to forefront this situation. Negative emissions technologies, as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) ones are currently a priority to explore, especially in non-exploited industrial sectors such as the bio-based industry as they significantly contribute to CO2 emissions. CATCO2NVERS will contribute to reduce GHG emissions from the bio-based industries developing 5 innovative and integrated technologies based on 3 catalytic methods (electrochemical, enzymatic and thermochemical). It will transform waste-CO2 (up to 90%) and residual biomass from 2 bio-based industries into 5 added-value chemicals (glyoxylic acid, lactic acid, furan dicarboxylic methyl ester (FDME), cyclic carbonated fatty acid methyl esters (CCFAMEs) with production yields between 70-90%. Methanol which will not have an energetic use but will be used in CATCO2NVERS own technologies. These target chemicals will be used as building blocks and monomers to obtain biopolymers of 100% bio-origin. Industrial partners will validate the application of the obtained chemical building blocks on the most relevant markets. In addition, the waste-CO2 stream will be conditioned by removing potential inhibitors for the catalysts. CATCO2NVERS will meet some of the principles in green chemistry (atom economy, use of renewable feedstocks, reduce derivatives and use of catalysts instead of stoichiometric reagents). CATCO2NVERS will explore an energy and resource efficient scenario following an industrial symbiosis model to ensure a biorefinery process along the CO2 valorization chain with zero or negative GHG emissions.

RECYCALYSE will disrupt the energy storage market through novel and recyclable catalytic materials made of abundant elements to be used in the most promising type of electrolysers to date, i.e. proton exchange membrane electrolysers (PEMEC). To overcome the main barriers that remain for PEMEC, namely high capital cost and use of critical raw materials (CRM), and to boost the economic competitiveness of EU stationary storage production, two main objectives have been defined. First, we will develop and manufacture highly active sustainable oxygen evolution (OER) catalysts that will reduce or eliminate CRMs, thus decreasing CO2 emissions and reducing cost. This will be achieved using novel supports, which we will also develop during the project, and by substituting CRMs with earth abundant elements such as Ni, Mn and Cu. Secondly, we will develop a recycling scheme for PEMEC catalysts, electrodes and overall system, thus reducing or avoiding the dependence on materials imports in Europe, implementing the recovered elements in the new developed catalysts, thus reaching a full circular economy. To meet these objectives RECYCALYSE combines world-leading research institutions and innovative and R&D performing SMEs specialised in the in hydrogen, materials engineering and recycling. The novel catalysts prepared with the new green processes along with the PEMEC prototype that we will design and build, will situate EU in an excellent position regarding energy storage. We will produce hydrogen with a high purity, and its transformation into energy will greatly reduce CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the novel low-CRM catalysts and developed materials recycle processes will strongly contribute to fulfil EU 2020 and 2050 targets. In summary, RECYCALYSE will result in a substantial reduction in the levelised costs of energy storage, leading to an improved technical and economic competitiveness of EU energy storage production suitable to store large amount of energy with at cost.

The DEFACTO project rationale is to develop a multiphysic and multiscale modelling integrated tool to better understand the material, cell and manufacturing process behaviour, therefore allowing to accelerate cell development and the R&I process. This approach will allow developing new high capacity and high voltage Li-ion cell generation 3b battery. This will increase the understanding of multiscale mechanisms and their interactions, reducing the R&D cell development resources, therefore unlocking an innovation-led cell manufacturing industry in Europe. The validated computational simulations will be a powerful tool to (i) tailor new optimum cell designs, (ii) optimise manufacturing steps of electrode processing and electrolyte filling, and (iii) shape new generation 3b materials. This work will be based on an iterative exchange process for model development, validation and optimisation using two cell technologies for the automotive market: a commercial NMC622/G cell taken from the product portfolio from on

Unlocking the full potential of the bioeconomy and its value chains requires a systematic and collaborative perspective for) the development of new skills, educational approaches and organisational solutions to provide education and training services. The aim of the BIObec project is to develop a holistic framework for multi-level Bio-Based Education Centers (BBEC) flexible enough to answer the present and future needs of the industry and of the surrounding ecosystem at local, regional, national and/or international levels. The project will design 6 BBEC pilots assuring a wide geographical coverage in Europe and addressing different topics linked to the variety of value chains and institutional contexts (vocational to university level, primary producers, processors, SMEs to MNCs). BIOBEC will clarify the needs of the different regional ecosystems and will provide detailed design, economic and financial assessment, governance plans for the educational training centres, as well as plans for life-long-learning programmes. It will also develop collaborative tools to maximize the synergies between them at the European and international level. The project will mobilise a network of 19 partners, which are leaders in Bioeconomy Education from different perspectives (ranging from academia to industry) together with a wide network of Implementation and Replication Working Groups and local stakeholders based in the EU. This network will pave the way for implementation and replication of the BBEC, in order to boost the contribution of the education sector for the development of the bioeconomy.