Since the last decades, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) have been drastically increasing in Europe, particularly for recent technologies such as Photovoltaic (PV) devices. These products are designed as complex sandwiches, which make the recovery of the critical (Si, In, Ga) and precious (Ag) raw materials encapsulated in the layers extremely challenging. The overall objective of PHOTORAMA is to draw up a profitable and sustainable circular value chain that will lead to a carbon neutral PV industry. PHOTORAMA will develop and demonstrate the industrial prospective of recycling solutions to recover and recycle all the materials ‘components from End-of-life PV panels. A complementary consortium of 13 European companies and research institutes has built the framework of PHOTORAMA as follow: (1) the development of innovative processes and technologies from TRL4-5 to TRL7 to establish a sound recycling scheme to increase significantly resource efficiency with decisive cost-cutting solutions. The implementation of automated disassembly and sandwich opening as layer separation (MONDRAGON, DFD, CEA) enabling high-recovery (> 95%) of secondary raw materials: Ag, Si (SINTEF, CEA, IDENER) and In, Ga (LUXCHEMTECH) from EoL PV panels (crystalline silicon, thin films), (2) the full-circularity approach emphasised from collection (SOREN) to marketable new products from Si, In, Ga, Ag (RHP), glass (MALTHA) mainly for PV manufacturing (EGP), (3) the demonstration of the business viability and attractiveness of its technological solutions (BIFA, ENEA) as one of the most competitive perspective for PV recycling. PHOTORAMA will strengthen this ambitious model with environmental impacts assessments and a strategic dissemination and exploitation plan supported by a strong effort for raising societal awareness (ZSI). The implementation of PHOTORAMA recycling scheme would unlock already more than 100,000 tons of valuable secondary raw materials by 2030.

Particle accelerators are a key asset of the European Research Area. Their use spans from the large installations devoted to fundamental science to a wealth of facilities providing X-ray or neutron beams to a wide range of scientific disciplines. Beyond scientific laboratories, their use in medicine and industry is rapidly growing. Notwithstanding their high level of maturity, particle accelerators are now facing critical challenges related to the size and performance of the facilities envisaged for the next step of particle physics research, to the increasing demands to accelerators for applied science, and to the specific needs of societal applications. In this crucial moment for accelerator evolution, I.FAST aims at enhancing innovation in and from accelerator-based Research Infrastructures (RI) by developing innovative breakthrough technologies common to multiple accelerator platforms, and by defining strategic roadmaps for future developments. I.FAST will focus the technological R&D on long-term sustainability of accelerator-based research, with the goal of developing more performant and affordable technologies, and of reducing power consumption and impact of accelerator facilities, thus paving the way to a sustainable next-generation of accelerators. By involving industry as a co-innovation partner via the 17 industrial companies in the Consortium, 12 of which SME’s, I.FASTwill generate and maintain an innovation ecosystem around the accelerator-based RIs that will sustain the long-term evolution of accelerator technologies in Europe. To achieve its goals, I.FAST will explore new alternative accelerator concepts and promote advanced prototyping of key technologies. These include, among others, techniques to increase brightness and reduce dimensions of synchrotron light sources, advanced superconducting technologies to produce higher fields with lower consumption, and strategies and technologies to improve energy efficiency.

Particle accelerators are essential tools for delivering excellence in many scientific fields and are widely used in industrial, healthcare and other applications. The demand of pushing further their scientific reach and of reinforcing their impact on society results in new challenges that must be addressed in the years to come: existing infrastructures are stretched to all performance frontiers, several world-class accelerator-based facilities on the ESFRI roadmap are under construction, and strategic decisions are needed for future accelerator facilities, to be realised on a global scale. To address these challenges, ARIES brings together a consortium of 41 beneficiaries from 18 countries: accelerator laboratories, technology institutes, universities and industrial partners to jointly address common challenges for the benefit of a number of projects and infrastructures in high-energy physics, as well as in photon and neutron science. By promoting complementary expertise, cross-disciplinary cooperation and a wider sharing of knowledge and technologies throughout academia and industry, ARIES will enhance the science and technology base for European accelerators. The main goals of ARIES are linked to developing and demonstrating novel concepts and further improving existing accelerator technologies, providing European researchers and industry with access to top-class accelerator research and test infrastructures, enlarging and further integrating the accelerator community in Europe, and developing a joint strategy towards sustainable accelerator S&T. ARIES comprises a strong industrial participation with 7 industrial partners, including two SMEs and one association. Innovation will be fostered by joint co-development programmes with industry, by supporting innovative technologies with market potential, and by advancing concepts and designs for medical, industrial and environmental applications of accelerators for the wide benefit of European science and society.

SUPREME aims at optimizing powder metallurgy processes throughout the supply chain. It will focus on a combination of fast-growing industrial production routes and advanced ferrous and non-ferrous metals. By offering more integrated, flexible and sustainable processes for powders manufacturing and metallic parts fabrication, SUPREME enables the reduction of the raw material resources (minerals, metal powder, gas and water) losses while improving energy efficiency, production rate and CO2 emissions, into sustainable processes and towards a circular economy. To achieve this goal, an ambitious cross-sectorial integration and optimization has been designed between several powder metallurgy processes: gas and water atomization as well as ball milling for metal powder production, additive manufacturing and near-net shape technologies for end-parts fabrication. Quality and process control will be developed to monitor KPI, based on eco-innovation approach, to demonstrate the optimization of material and energy use. 4 demonstrators will be proposed at each step of the value chain in real industrial setting and ready for business exploitation at TRL 7: mineral concentration, metal powder manufacturing, metal part manufacturing and end-product that will validate a global optimization of more than 25% on material yield losses, more than 10% on energy efficiency, more than 10% on production rate and beyond 30% of CO2 emissions. SUPREME has gathered an outstanding consortium of 17 partners from 8 countries, represented by 11 companies including 6 SMEs that will ensure a successful implementation towards market applications. 5 applications sectors are targeted: automotive, aeronautics, cutting tools, molding tools and medical. The process key differentiation advantages will bring modularity, flexibility and sustainability to powder metallurgy and will reduce the total cost breakdown of these technologies, boosting their adoption by industry.

The limiting factor for the duration of space endeavours is often related to the total mass of propellant available on board. If a new propulsion device was capable of using the upper layers of the atmosphere as propellant, this would enable a vast spectrum of new planetary mission scenarios. In recent years SITAEL has produced the world’s first example of such a device, the “RAM-EP” engine. This innovative electric propulsion (EP) thruster was successfully tested in an environment representative of VLEO, achieving TRL4. The AETHER project will advance the thruster design towards a more flight representative stage, experimentally demonstrating sufficient and reliable net thrust production for the target applications. This will be achieved through the design optimization of the various thruster components, careful selection of materials and proper diagnostics tools, together with system-level design considerations. Successful completion of the AETHER project will advance the electric propulsion portfolio of Europe with the world-first EP air-breathing engine, potentially shifting the paradigm of VLEO, LEO and planetary missions.