WAVEE, Waste As Valuable Elements for Europe, aims at valorise skills and know-how coming from academic and industrial scientists operating in the field of waste treatment and material science by the development of cutting-edge and low impact recovery methods for critical raw materials, CRMs from spent Li-ion batteries. The adoption of microwave radiation and mechanochemical approaches, in combination with mild organic/metal-organic compounds to replace conventional pyrometallurgy and strong and hazardous acids will provide a leap forward safer and greener recovery. The developed protocols will be scaled-up to pre-industrial level, to assess the overall efficiency of the innovative recycling processes and the quality of recovered RMs. Lastly, recovered materials will be tested in brand-new devices, such as batteries, catalysts, sensors and nanoelectronics. The outcomes of the project WAVE are relevant in key sectors for EU economy and for EU citizens, tackling the challenge of sourcing rare elements and properly dealing with waste valorisation and circular economy. This will result in improved efficiency and sustainability of the whole industrial chain of battery recycling, while ensuring a solid and reliable source of key RMs within EU. WAVEE Action pursue its main objectives through an intersectoral secondment plan, training activities, workshops and seminars for academic, SME and public audience. The consortium created for the project WAVEE represents a solid combination of internationally-recognised academic organisations possessing a wide experience on protocols related to the synthesis and treatment of materials for energy applications and advanced characterizations that is benchmarked by track record in both research publications and implemented projects.

The CORR-AELECTRA project aims to gain the knowledge on the behavior of selected metallic materials in liquid ammonia in the presence of hydrogen. This knowledge will support development of AELECTRA technology for liquid anhydrous ammonia production and separation. Currently there is a very limited research on performance of different metallic materials in such a complex environment where hydrogen, ammonia and water are present at high pressures. FCET will fill the knowledge gap by conducting electrochemical, spectroscopic, microscopic and mechanical examination of metallic materials; during and upon the exposure to liquid ammonia alone or in combination with hydrogen. Metals will be exposed to additional conditions, such as water contamination, elevated temperatures, different composition of gases, as well as the surface polarization. CORR-AELECTRA will facilitate the material choice and help AELECTRA technology achieve longest possible operation time with a minimum degradation in performance. The current AELECTRA consortium lacks partners that have expertise in corrosion science and FCET, as a partner from widening country will join AELECTRA and bring this expertise. FCET has had 100+ projects with industry on corrosion problems. FCET's participation in CORR-AELECTRA will help FCET gain international visibility, in in a context of applied corrosion in electrochemical energy storage and conversion, and in particular those related to ammonia production and storage. In addition, FCET team members will gain new skills in project management in complex international projects. This will open new venues and make FCET attractive partner in new transnational projects within HORIZON Europe.

The transition of the historically established chemistry toward biobased feedstocks and integrated biotechnology will reinvent the chemistry of the 21st century. New chemistry processes will not simply repeat fossil-based reactions but offer fully new opportunity spaces for coming up sustainable materials. The research focuses on biobased polymers and materials with superior product properties, thus making a significant contribution to achieve the GREEN DEAL goals of the European Union. The consortium joins leading academic partners with high- tech SMEs and world-class producers of enzymes, adhesives and coatings. The research explores two highly relevant strategies for the future biobased polymer industry: the direct modification of biopolymers and biotechnological production of monomers. Work on the direct enzymatic modification of lignin combines extraction and blending of lignin with selective chemoenzymatic functionalization. Metabolic, enzyme and bioprocess engineering is combined to develop routes towards biobased lactones, whose sustainable ring-opening-polymerization leads to new co-polyesters. B3PO studies the application of the biobased polymers in adhesives, coatings and biomedical 3D materials, and their biodegradation. Conversion of biomass to high-value functional polymers requires very different methods and thus highly trained scientists withinterdisciplinary skills. B3PO’s double degree program offers unique interdisciplinary training at the interface of industrial biotechnology and polymer science, complemented by transferable skills with emphasis on creativity and an ntrepreneurial mindset. B3PO ths offers a unique, highly intersectoral and interdisciplinary environment to provide 15 double degree PhD candidates with outstanding employability profiles for the European industry.

Enzyme catalysis is an essential technology at the heart of industrial biotechnology, expected to foster the EU economic growth and industry leadership, while effectively addressing social, environmental, and economic needs. It improves the sustainability of chemical processes and gives rise to new reactivities for multi-functionalized product building. Traditional chemical methods for their synthesis are typically realized by costly and environmentally unfriendly processes. Expanding the toolbox of available biocatalysts enabling novel reactions not yet accessible with the existing enzymes is a formidable challenge, but will open exciting new avenues for applications in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The BIODECCODINNG consortium will address this challenge by decoding novel reaction chemistries from the largely underexploited family of N-N bond forming enzymes, while addressing challenging reactions performed by C-C bond forming enzymes that are currently not accessible. The main goal of the BIODECCODINNG DN is to train and educate Europe’s next 10 visionaries for a sustainable future on cutting-edge enzyme technology centered around N-N and C-C bond formations, and to tackle technology gaps, practical challenges, as well as to exploit synthetic opportunities with a huge innovation potential. The network is established by world-leading experts from European academic institutions and industrial partners that will together implement the training agenda. This setting provides strong interdisciplinary co-supervision and intersectoral exposure in secondments to the doctoral candidates, and bridges intersectoral and multidisciplinary boundaries across training in leading-edge drug discovery, enzyme catalysis and process development. BIODECCODINNG will therewith prepare the next generation of researchers for the implementation of sustainable enzymatic processes comprising C-C- and N-N bond forming enzymes in the European Biotech sector.

AELECTRA will develop a groundbreaking system for energy-efficient long-term electrical energy storage in ammonia. The high risk/high gain concept has the potential to outperform conventional thermochemical Haber-Bosch Reactor (HBR) in CAPEX, at similar OPEX. It is suitable for decentralised on-site use, filling a gap in the market for production scales < 1000 kg/h NH3 (1 kW - 10 MW). The heart of the AELECTRA proposal is to deliver a turnkey system that will demonstrate NH3 synthesis and separation at lab scale. The state of the art will be advanced by identification of optimal reactor conditions, developing reactor & system components and AC/DC power supply. The AELECTRA system is suitable for decentralized use and can store the energy there where it is produced, and thus it can address both spatial and temporal variations in renewable energy production. It can disrupt the chemical industry by delivering the same product as Haber-Bosch Process, however at lower capital costs in large part by eliminating the need for expensive heat exchangers and compressors. The AELECTRA system will be relevant for multiple industry sectors, including power production, food, pharma, shipping as well as fertilizer production. To reach these ambitious goals AELECTRA will draw on the complimentary expertise of three research teams (AU, VITO and SINTEF); catalyst manufacturer C2CAT; power to X and X to power industry player ELTRONIC Fueltech; ANORI, a company investing in renewable energy projects in the northern part of the globe (Greenland); and ADISSEO, a French company that produces methionine using ammonia as feedstock.