The MAT4TREAT project consists in a consortium of 8 Universities, 5 of them European (UNITO, AAU, POLITO, UPV and UOI), and the other three from outside the EU (UNLP, McGill, SU), as well as two non academic institutions (ACEA and LQT). These groups are committed to work in the development of novel materials to be used in innovative integrated water tertiary treatments (to remove, for instance, Emerging Pollutants). This ambitious goal will be achieved by world leading research groups in the following fields: (i) graphene-based and other carbon-related materials, (ii) polymeric materials, (iii) oxidic ceramic materials, and (iv) hybrid inorganic-polymeric materials. The new materials will be used as adsorbents, as photocatalysts and as active layers for the fabrication of membranes, and thus tested for the pollutant removal from model aqueous solutions as well as from real water samples. Furthermore, approaches combining different materials and pollutant abatement technologies will be proposed and a demonstrative lab-bench apparatus for the integrated treatment of wastewaters will be built-up with the support of two European non academic institutions, which will directly participate to the project. Chemometric approach will be followed to optimize both materials production and experimental conditions for analytical purposes. Life Cycle Assessment of new materials and proposed technologies will be performed in order to evaluate their economic and environmental sustainability. For the implementation of the program secondments of ESRs and ERs are scheduled (95 secondments for 142 person-months) together with a diffusion plan to report on the obtained results, not only to the scientific community, but also to stakeholders and non-specialized audience.

eCREW coordinates and supports the roll-out of an innovative scheme of household cooperation in energy management. These are Community Renewable Energy Webs (CREWs), in which households jointly exploit household-level electricity generation and battery storage capacities and optimise energy efficiency and expenditures. The key purpose of CREWs is to support the transition of passive consumers to active participants in the local energy system through informed decisions and collective actions. In eCREW, three energy companies from DE, TR and ES (Lighthouse Communities) will roll-out the eCREW approach to their clients. A strong and divers Follower Community made up of entities from AT, DE, ES, FR, GR, SE and TR is made fit for giving the eCREW approach a “Go”, too. Together, 240,000 households will be enabled to join a CREW during the project runtime, establishing about 200 CREWs with 15,000 participants, saving at least 13 GWh/year. Cooperation within a CREW is facilitated through the provision of an award-winning smart phone app (PEAKapp), exploiting smart meter data to stimulate an increase in energy efficiency and the uptake of local renewable electricity generation. Administration of the CREWs, including the billing of consumption and generation, is covered by electricity retailing companies which are thereby transformed into holistic service providers; we call them Community Administering Entities (CAEs). In our approach, administrative burdens are relieved from the households, who are then free to focus their efforts on making the most out of their participation in a CREW. Monetary benefits from the eCREW approach are distributed amongst prosumers, traditional consumers, and the CAE through an innovative split-incentives contract applied in the project. The financial arrangement is tailored to ensure that the eCREW approach is financially viable and attractive for all participants and allows a non-discriminatory participation of all households.

BioROBURplus builds upon the closing FCH JU BioROBUR project (direct biogas oxidative steam reformer) to develop an entire pre-commercial fuel processor delivering 50 Nm3/h (i.e. 107 kg/d) of 99.9% hydrogen from different biogas types (landfill gas, anaerobic digestion of organic wastes, anaerobic digestion of wastewater-treatment sludges) in a cost-effective manner. The energy efficiency of biogas conversion into H2 will exceed 80% on a HHV basis, due to the following main innovations: 1) increased internal heat recovery enabling minimisation of air feed to the reformer based on structured cellular ceramics coated with stable and easily recyclable noble metal catalysts with enhanced coking resistance; 2) a tailored pressure-temperature-swing adsorption (PTSA) capable of exploiting both pressure and low T heat recovery from the processor to drive H2 separation from CO2 and N2; 3) a recuperative burner based on cellular ceramics capable of exploiting the low enthalpy PTSA-off-gas to provide the heat needed at points 1 and 2 above. The complementary innovations already developed in BioROBUR (advanced modulating air-steam feed control system for coke growth control; catalytic trap hosting WGS functionality and allowing decomposition of incomplete reforming products; etc.) will allow to fully achieve the project objectives within the stringent budget and time constraints set by the call. Prof. Debora Fino, the coordinator of the former BioROBUR project, will manage, in an industrially-oriented perspective, the work of 11 partners with complementary expertise: 3 universities (POLITO, KIT, SUPSI), 3 research centres (IRCE, CPERI, DBI), 3 SMEs (ENGICER, HST, MET) and 2 large companies (ACEA, JM) from 7 different European Countries. A final test campaign is foreseen at TRL 6 to prove targets achievement, catching the unique opportunity offered by ACEA to exploit three different biogas types and heat integration with an anaerobic digester generating the biogas itself.

SPOTLIGHT’s key objective is to develop and validate a photonic device and chemical process concept for the sunlight-powered conversion of CO2 and green H2 to the chemical fuel methane (CH4, Sabatier process), and to carbon monoxide (CO, reverse water gas shift process) as starting material for production of the chemical fuel methanol (CH3OH). Both CH4 and CH3OH are compatible with our current infrastructure, and suited for multiple applications such as car fuel, energy storage, and starting material for the production of valuable chemicals. SPOTLIGHT’s photonic device will comprise a transparent flow reactor, optimized for light incoupling in the catalyst bed. Furthermore, it will comprise secondary solar optics to concentrate natural sunlight and project it onto the reactor, and an energy efficient LED light source to ensure continuous 24/7 operation. SPOTLIGHT’s catalysts will be plasmonic catalysts, capable of absorbing the entire solar spectrum. The space-time-yield achieved to date with these catalysts in the Sabatier and rWGS process are > 104 times higher than for conventional semiconductor catalysts. This makes the concept technically feasible for scale up without excessive land use, and makes it economically much more attractive because of strongly reduced capital expenditures. SPOTLIGHT’s photonic device and process concept are perfectly suited for CO2 sources up to 1 Mt p.a., which makes them complementary to existing large scale CCU processes. For the EU, we estimate that the annual CO2 reduction through use of SPOTLIGHT’s technology is maximized to 800 Mt, which is approximately 18% of the current annual total. This could generate an amount of CH4 produced in the EU which equals 14.5 EJ of energy, corresponding to 21% of the EU’s current annual energy use, and representing a value of € 393 bil. Ergo, SPOTLIGHT’s technology reduces the dependence of the EU on non-EU countries for its energy supply, and initiates a new multi-billion industry.

The ENGICOIN proposal aims at the development, from TRL3 to TRL5, of three new microbial factories (MFs), integrated in an organic waste anaerobic digestion (AD) platform, based on engineered strains exploiting CO2 sources and renewable solar radiation or H2 for the production of value-added chemicals, namely: MF.1) the cyanobacteria Synechocystis to produce lactic acid from either biogas combustion flue gases (CO2 concentration ~ 15%) or pure and costless CO2 streams from biogas-to-biomethane purification. MF.2) the aerobic and toxic metal tolerant Ralstonia eutropha to produce PHA bioplastics from biogas combustion flue gases and complementary carbon sources derived from the AD digestate. MF.3) the anaerobic Acetobacterium woodii to produce acetone from the CO2 stream from biogas-to-biomethane purification. High process integration will be guaranteed by taking advantage of low-grade heat sources (e.g. from cogenerative biogas-fired engine or an tailored PEM electrolyser), exploitable side gas streams (e.g. O2 from electrolysis, CO2 from biomethane purification), low-price electricity produced during night-time by a biogas-fired-engine cogeneration unit or even intensified operation conditions (e.g. up to 10 bars pressure for the anaerobic acetone production bioreactor; led-integrated photo-bioreactor). This is an essential feature, alongside with the high conversion rates enabled by synthetic and systems biology on the above microorganisms, to achieve competitive selling prices for the key target products (1.45 €/kg for lactic acid; 3.5 €/kg for PHA; 1 €/kg for acetone). Notwithstading the key application platform (anaerobic biorefinery based on organic wastes) the innovative production processes developed have a great exploitation potential in other application contexts: flue gases from different combustion appliances (e.g. cement kilns), alcoholic fermentation CO2 streams (e.g. lignocelluosic biorefineries, breweries), etc.