Recognizing the significance of energy efficiency in industry and carbon emissions reduction, FLEXHYON is proposing a clever combination of alternative fully electrified heating systems (microwave, heat pumps, ultrasound) to tackle three specific industrial processes: ultrafast drying of compact material, drying of granular materials and distillation/extraction of ground material to address their urgent need to transition from fossil energy to renewable and low-carbon energy sources. Three optimized prototypes will be built and demonstrated in 3 industrial environments: ceramics, feed production, biomass. The quality and economic impact of the developments will be evaluated using LCA and LCC; environmental and technical performances, health protection, safety will be demonstrated and validated. Sound market strategies will be developed, giving clear indications on scalability, transferability and replicability across different industrial sectors, commercialization and deployment will be achieved through development and validation of set of business models for the 3 business cases. The FLEXHYON solutions will exhibit significantly higher energy efficiency in comparison to traditional fossil fuel-based heating technologies, therefore leading to a reduction in GHG emissions, maximizing primary energy savings, and enabling higher production flexibility (e.g. production on-demand, production on-site). Their scalability (upscaling, downscaling) will allow to better follow market demand and enable leaner production paradigms. To achieve the project goals, FLEXHYON combines 9 partners covering the whole technical value chain required for the development and validation of alternative fully electrified heating systems. The Consortium will also implement different dissemination and communication activities to raise awareness about the benefits of alternative heating systems in industry and exploitation opportunities from know-how generated and exploitable results developed.

BeonNAT Project aims to increase knowledge in obtaining different bioproducts from woody species, trees and shrubs, currently underused. The project assesses the key aspects in the value chain including a selection of the and includes a selection of the most adequate species for different European countries (WP1). BeonNAT is based on the following concepts: mixed cultivation of selected woody species in marginal lands using the coppice management method (WP2) and to obtain of a cascade of products within the biorefinery conception (WP3-WP7). The cultivation tests will be executed in different locations: Germany, Romania and Spain; and the biorefinery processes will be studied in research laboratories located in Portugal, Germany, Italy and Spain. The BeonNAT project emphasizes: 1) the need to achieve a higher level of knowledge about bioindustry oriented mixed crops and 2) their sustainable management with the aim of generating the appropriate raw materials to produce the target bioproducts. In BeonNAT 8 bioproducts will be produced including essential oils, extracts, woodpaper, particleboard, bioplastics, biochar, active carbon and absorbents. The whole value chains sustainability is analyzed in WP8 including economic, environmental and social impacts related to the future BeonNAT Biorefineries as well as the effects on biodiversity and market key aspects. Additionally, the project has an ambitious strategy for communication, dissemination and exploitation of results already designed in WP9. The consortium consists of 8 Research Technology Organizations, 5 Small and Medium Enterprises, 2 Large Enterprises and 1 Association.