The total EU electronics industry employs ≈20.5 million people, sales exceeding €1 trillion and includes 396,000 SMEs. It is a major contributor to EU GDP and its size continues to grow fueled by demand from consumers to many industries. Despite its many positive impacts, the industry also faces some challenges connected with the enormous quantity of raw materials that it needs for sustainability, the huge quantity of Waste Electrical, Electronics Equipment (WEEE) generated and the threat of competition from Asia. To sustain its growth, to manage the impact of WEEE and to face the competition from Asia, the industry needs innovations in key areas. One such area is the drive for ultra-miniaturisation/ultlra-functionality of equipment. The key current road block/limitation to achieving the goal of ultra-miniaturisation/functionality is how to increase the component density on the printed circuit board (PCB). This is currently limited by the availability of hyper fine pitch solder powder pastes. FineSol aims to deliver at first stage an integrated production line for solder particles with size 1-10 μm and to formulate solder pastes containing these particles. Thus, by proper printing methods (e.g. screen and jet printing) the fabrication of PCBs with more than double component density will be achieved. Consequently, this would effectively enable more than a doubling of the functions available on electronic devices such as cell phones, satellite navigation systems, health devices etc. The successful completion of the FineSol project would lift the ultra-miniaturisation/functionality road block and also enable reduction in raw material usage, reduction in WEEE, reduction in pollution and associated health costs and also a major reduction in EU energy demand with all its indirect benefits for environment and society.

Production of electrical insulation components is globally a B$1.19 business. Cellulose is one commonly used raw material for insulation components. State-of-the-art production methods for high quality electrical insulation products are typically labour intensive and slow. The main objective of NOVUM is to develop and demonstrate a compact and feasible pilot line concept based on novel processing technologies for rapid, design driven production of advanced cellulose-based electrical insulation components. This new pilot line will result in significant efficiency improvement and higher productivity and flexibility, while ensuring lower operational costs as compared with the state-of-the-art process. Manual production will be replaced by an automated manufacturing concept with increased resource efficiency, including 40% reduction in labour time and 60% reduction in waste generation, 20% lower energy consumption and 40% decrease in operating costs. Processing technologies in the focus of NOVUM are 3D printing of cellulose-based materials having thermoplastic features as well as foam forming and thermoforming of cellulose fibres. These three technologies will be developed in parallel to each other, together with the cellulose materials, in order to reach optimal combination for the pilot line concept. Besides technical feasibility, the decision on the pilot line concept will be based on the end use requirements as well as on economic, social and environmental impacts including circular economy considerations. The novel manufacturing concept will also enable exploitation of the full potential of design in generating form and thus novel functionalities to cellulose-based electrical insulation components. In addition, the concept will be based on multipliable technologies, enabling their transition and wide adoption for cellulose-based materials across the process industry and for applications beyond NOVUM for other industrial areas.