The INTERfaces program will train 14 ESRs within an EID network jointly designed by European academic and industry partners in innovative research projects dedicated to developing clean bioprocesses for the production of chemicals. The assembly of biocatalysts to reaction sequences allows avoiding steps for isolation and purification of intermediates and thus a significant improvement of the environmental footprint of catalytic processes. The main goal of INTERfaces is the extension of this concept towards multi-step biocatalytic reactions in immobilized form. These “Heterogeneous Biocatalytic Reaction Cascades” will greatly facilitate re-use of the catalysts and further simplify downstream-processing. INTERfaces combines material science and protein engineering to design tailored enzymes and (bio-based) materials that will complement each other to obtain optimized heterogeneous biocatalysts. These tools will be applied to solve synthetic challenges in the use of two biobased monomers as starting materials to synthesize products for application fields like antioxidants and biopolymers. Process optimization and up-scale in industry will reveal key factors for synthetic utilization of the biocatalysts. INTERfaces emphasizes particularly the engineering of the designed cascades in solid phase. This includes the design of reactors, use of computational modeling tools, application of the right operational modes, and reaction medium needed for desired space-time-yields and product titers. Commercial relevant processes will be up-scaled together with industry for technical implementation. 13 Non-academic partners ranging from high-tech SMEs to large producing companies and 9 academic institutions offer an intersectoral and interdisciplinary environment to provide 14 Ph.D. candidates with outstanding employability profiles for the European Biotech Sector. Dedicated workshops and well-balanced supervisory team aim at increasing the gender diversity in biotech research.

The importance of water for human life is irrefutable. However, it exists a real threat to global water quality due to the pollution generated from residential, industrial and commercial origins. Nowadays, the social trend is to move towards a circular economy to replace the conventional ‘take-make- consume and dispose’ model of growth, where water recycling will play a significant role. Currently the annual world demand for fresh water is 64 bn m3, where just about 7.1 bn m3 comes from recycling due to the high cost of the technologies for wastewater treatment. The need to reuse water along with the scarcity of water has encouraged the development of new water treatment systems to satisfy the growing demand. ÆNEAM aims at launching to the market a green, versatile and efficient process for the industrial synthesis of biocompatible ceramic scaffolds materials for their use in wastewater treatment. Our system will reduce the energy demand, reducing the generation of sludge with a minimum maintenance. Nevertheless, we still need to carry out full operational test to validate our solution for its subsequent commercialization. In addition, we need to forge commercial agreements with strategic partners to guarantee our presence into the market. Our market, the Agroindustry global wastewater treatment market, was valued at €1.7 bn in 2017, and its forecast is to grow at a CAGR of 5.35% from 2018 to 2023. Based on our commercialization plan we will offer our solution to the rural environment companies of the agro industrial sector, which will include not only the sale of MEMBio, but also maintenance and consultancy services. Following our business strategy, we establish an average price of 1,000€/unit for industrial membranes, and 300€/unit for research purposes. Based on the profitability of the project we expect a cumulative revenue of €14.2 M by the third year, meaning a cumulative cash flow of € 7.2 M. Considering a 3-years forecast will give us a ROI of 294%.