This project aims to provide for real-world implementations of Water Framework Directive (and other water related legislation), as well as the Circular Economy and EU Green Deal packages by showcasing and validating innovative next generation water resource solutions at pre-commercial demonstration scale. These solutions combine WATER management services with the recovery of value added renewable resources extracted/MINED from alternative water resources ("WATER-MINING"). The project will integrate selected innovative technologies that have reached proof of concept levels under previous EU projects. The value-added end-products (water, platform chemicals, energy, nutrients, minerals) are expected to provide regional resource supplies to fuel economic developments within a growing demand for resource security. Different layouts for urban wastewater treatment and seawater desalination are proposed, to demonstrate the wider practical potential to replicate the philosophy of approach in widening circles of water and resource management schemes. Innovative service-based business models (such as chemical leasing) will be introduced to stimulate progressive forms of collaboration between public and private actors and access to private investments, as well as policy measures to make the proposed water solutions relevant and accessible for rolling out commercial projects in the future. The goal is to enable costs for the recovery of the resources to become distributed across the whole value chain in a fair way, promoting business incentives for investments from both suppliers and end-users along the value chain. The demonstration case studies are to be first implemented in five EU countries (NL, ES, CY, PT, IT) where prior successful technical and social steps have already been accomplished. The broader project consortium representation will be an enabler to transferring trans-disciplinary project know-how to the partner countries while motivating and inspiring relevant innovations throughout Europe.

ICARUS will upcycle waste material resources of most selected process industries (covering minerals, cement, ceramic, non-ferrous metals, steel, water, pulp&paper and chemical ones) to achieve circular and sustainable process industries overcoming their final application in construction sector. This project will accelerate the process industry uptake and contributing towards the developed education and skills activities and outcomes in this area as well as linking all value chain from industrial players recyclers, public authorities, and standardisation actors. ICARUS tackles resources usage in the construction sector (housing and infrastructure), accounting for 50% of the total material extraction, and being responsible for more than 35% of waste streams in the EU. Furthermore, the circular economy in the sector is still at a very early stage, with an estimated level of circularity for the EU of 12.4% material use rate in the year 2021. ICARUS approach aims to give technological support to stakeholders of energy-intensive and construction industries as key players for the transition to a more green and digital processes industries supported by standardization aspects to promote values and a resilient, green and digital Single Market and business models including co-creation and co-design to successful market implementation. ICARUS will represent a breakthrough in the research and demonstration of new technologies to upgrade Secondary Raw Materials ensuring similar quality as primary raw materials, of three waste streams to improve circular economy principles in several intensive industries with its implementation in the construction sector, to improve circular economy principles in P4P process industries. These new technologies will be demonstrated throughout 3 demo cases: 1-Upcycling of Lithium Aluminosilicate Residue;2-Upcycling of SRMs from urban waste cellulose;3-Upcycling of steelmaking slags via Carbon Capture and Storage .

The Oil&Gas (O&G) industry is one of the 8 most water-intensive industries; indeed, it could be conceived as a water industry which delivers oil as a by-product. Specifically, by 2020 it is expected that over 500 million barrels/day of produced water (PW) and about 15 million m³/day of refinery wastewater (RW) are generated. Despite the necessity and potential beneficial impacts of reusing the water involved in extraction and refining activities, several significant barriers are hampering this opportunity. Firstly, the existent commercial water treatment technologies cannot be used directly in the O&G sector without an extensive adaptation, and they are not flexible and reliable enough to bear the complexity and variability of PW/RW composition. Moreover, there is no expertise or experience in the O&G sector in the design and operation of water treatment systems. The INTEGROIL project aims to develop and demonstrate a robust but flexible integrated solution for treating O&G water flows with variable compositions to different water qualities depending on the final reuse objective. This new solution will be readily designed with different modules each comprising innovative water treatment technologies that will be operated and optimized in an integrated manner through a novel Decision Support System, in line with 3 priorities of the EIP Water. The INTEGROIL approach ensures minimal design and operational efforts involved from the O&G end-user side and that the energy and chemical costs are kept to an absolute minimum for a certain target water quality. Its feasibility and long-term application will be assessed through demo activities in 2 real operational conditions, that will provide critical information for the commercialisation actions to be undertaken. The INTEGROIL consortium brings together 10 entities (6 SMEs) covering the full value chain, including technology developers, O&G end-users, a Sustainability Assessment firm and a professional association.