R3VOLUTION (R3V) project will revolutionize industrial water management in the EU, providing key innovations that can enable economically, environmentally and operationally water reclamation projects (by addressing solutes and energy recovery challenges), and generate significant impact for the EU in the next decade. To pave the way towards sustainable and efficient water and resource consumption, R3V takes on the challenge of developing and demonstrating a resource recovery solution that will enable >90% water reuse across most intensive water industries, applicable upstream and downstream, whilst recovering >45% effluents solutes, >50% waste heat reuse and eliminate 100% of hazardous substances. R3V will investigate, develop and demonstrate tailored membrane-based treatment trains coupled with waste heat, and a digital process assistant (DPA) to support the design phase to achieve optimal configuration for different industrial settings, minimising risks in implementation and provide critical support in operation. With the aim to demonstrate R3V solution capabilities and replicability potential across varied process industries, the project includes 4 physical demo cases at pilot scale targeting several up- and down- streams in a variety of industries with high water discharges and complex effluents: petrochemical, bio-based chemical, pulp & paper and steel, each led by renowned technological partners. The project will also assess the transferability of the results by evaluating one additional industry (mining in Chile), and its replicability in 3 additional streams, via the DPA tool developed within the project. The consortium perfectly maps the triangle of competences required to develop R3V solution: membrane technologies and design of treatment trains, energy recovery and digitalisation, considering also transversal competences such as economic, environmental and social assessment, together with the exploitation plan of the developments.

CO2OLHEAT will demonstrate at TRL7 in the CEMEX cement manufacturing plant in Prachovice (CZ) the operation of a 2 MW Waste-Heat-to-power (WH2P) skid based on a 2MW-sCO2 cycle able to efficiently valorize local waste heat at a significant temperature of 400°C. Capitalizing consortium excellent knowledge coming from previous sCO2 turbomachinery design experience and EU funded projects on industrial waste heat valorisation (TASIO, i-THERM, sCO2-FLEX etc.) and stimulated by SPIRE roadmap and EU sCO2 R&D initiatives, CO2OLHEAT aims to valorize waste heat even at higher temperature if compared with the traditional steam/ORC solutions. The project will demonstrate the EU MW scale first-of-a-kind waste heat-sCO2 plant towards a cheaper/more flexible waste heat valorisation. The project will strengthen EU industrial leadership in both energy intensive industries (making them more competitive) and turbomachinery sectors, bridging the current gap on sCO2 turbomachinery that EU has with US and Japan-Korea. The project will analyse sCO2 WH2P potential from a technical, economic and environmental point of view, developing innovative models for the design of the cycle and of the turbomachinery as well as investigating CO2OLHEAT cycle benefits in the cement, glass, aluminium, power generation sectors via techno-economic and Life Cycle based replication feasibility studies, involving relevant EU industrial players (EDF, ENGIE, MYTH, CEMEX, SISECAM, CELSA). The project is coordinated by ETN and involves an industry driven consortium with key turbomachinery OEM (SIE-BH), energy intensive industries, energy utilities and R&D partners all committed to bring soon CO2OLHEAT sCO2 cycle technologies on the market. Thanks to its robust demonstration and replication campaign (also foreseeing extra-EU stakeholders collaboration), CO2OLHEAT can be considered a “demonstration to market” project, being keystone for EU sCO2 turbomachinery industry and for a more effective waste heat valorisation.

Growing demand for high quality iron ores and scrap as well as abandonment of carbon intensive sintering in the future require novel technological approaches for upgrading of low-grade iron ores and recycling of mill scale. TransZeroWaste will apply hydrometallurgy for mill scale de-oiling and use this iron-rich scrap equivalent to upgrade low-grade iron ores. For that, TransZeroWaste will develop low carbon technologies such as cold pelletising and briquetting, hot microwave pelletising, and magnet-supported hydrometallurgy from TRL 6 to TRL 8. The developed technologies will be transferable to further material flows such as dusts and sludges. On European level, the expected impact will be the potential upgrade of over 18 million t/a low-grade iron ore, up to 6 million t/a mill scale and 3 million t/a pellet sieving residue. Total impact of TransZeroWaste will include upgrading of 27 million t/a materials with low carbon technologies and avoiding of corresponding sinter plant carbon footprint of 4,3 – 9,9 MtCO2/a. Technological competences and know-how are owned by the participating partners from the applied research. They will be developed and transferred to the two industrial partners with 9 production sites. Thoroughly planned dissemination and exploitation activities will ensure effective implementation of technologies after project end. Life cycle assessment and economic evaluation will be performed; sustainable business models will be developed. Furthermore, a decision support platform for industrial users will be installed. In combination with workshops and trainings it will help to find and implement the best upgrading technology for various low-grade materials considering environmental and economic aspects. TransZeroWaste will serve as a vehicle for the transition of the European steel industry to the carbon free zero waste future.

PROBONO brings together a European multidisciplinary consortium of 47 partners, construction and consulting entities, public asset service managers, municipalities, technology solution providers and experts, to turn the six European districts (PROBONO´s Living Labs) into Green Building Neighborhoods (GBN), with positive energy balance and zero carbon emissions: two large-scale demonstrators (Madrid and Dublin) and four living labs representing business/owner promoters of the green buildings and neighborhoods’ transition (Porto, Brussels, Aarhus, Prague). PROBONO will provide strong examples of how GBN's technological and social innovations can be applied, with a vision focused on building infrastructure and a renewed focus on people and sustainability, taking full advantage of digitalization and smart technologies for the benefit of society. The adoption of the PROBONO approach and innovations will be proposed through a range of participatory methods that promote stakeholders (including citizens) partaking in co-designing and co-delivering a sustainable GBN. PROBONO will provide GBN Strategic Planning Tools in spatial, economic, technical, environmental regulatory, and social context aligned with city and urban masterplans and policy frameworks. PROBONO will create evidence-based policy recommendations, standardization actions, and robust adoption and commercialization strategies supported by a capacity-building program and a European Alliance of GBN Innovation Clusters. PROBONO will provide a GBN Digital Twin (DT) implemented across the LLs as a virtual representation of associated GBN including operational assets that implicate environmental and efficiency KPI. A cloud-based decision support-planning tool will be created to develop an optimized design for carbon-neutral energy GBN systems incorporating PROBONO innovative solutions on GBN demand and response dynamics. The technological developments will include metering different utilities with electricity, gas, warm energy, cold energy, and water linked to Smart IoT gateway and Energy Optimisation middleware, all this combined with geothermal, PV, micro-turbines, efficient HVAC technologies, green roofs, custom insulation, and GB energy optimization, efficient energy storage and integrating EV charging value chain. To enhance wide-scale adoption and standard creation, PROBONO will contribute with evidence-based policy recommendations, standardization actions, and robust adoption and commercialization strategies.