CARMA-H2 will enable highly attractive hydrogen production from biogas through demonstration of a protonic membrane reformer (bioPMR) that integrates steam methane reforming and water-gas shift reactions, hydrogen separation, heat management, CO2 capture and hydrogen compression in a single stage. The realization of 6 process steps in a single reactor allows to achieve unprecedented energy efficiency with a project target to demonstrate >85% (HHV) at the bioPMR level. The bioPMR technology enables direct delivery of purified and pressurized H2 (30 bar). BioPMR will be coupled with CO2 liquefaction to enable direct production of food-grade CO2. Coupling the liquefaction unit allows for higher hydrogen recovery and liquid CO2 production as the off-gas from the liquefaction process will be recycled back to the bioPMR unit. CARMA-H2 will demonstrate the bioPMR technology integrated with CO2 liquefaction at the existing Arazuri wastewater treatment plant in the region of Navarra in Spain. The demonstration plant will be operated for at least 4000 h, and produce 500 kg/day of hydrogen and above 4000 kg/day of food-grade CO2. To facilitate the demonstration CARMA-H2 will install 1) a pre-treatment system for biogas compression and removal of sulphur and other impurities, 2) two bioPMR modules which will operate directly on biogas (CO2 > 40 vol.%), and 3) an integrated CO2 liquefaction unit. The demonstration plant will be located in Ebro Valley Hydrogen Corridor, and the project aims to secure off-take of the produced hydrogen and liquid CO2 during operation. The overall system will be controlled and analysed by an advanced control system and an associated digital twin that will be developed in the project. The wastewater plant is currently operating a biogas production plant of >4 MW from which the biogas is utilized for power generation. The achievements in CARMA-H2 will be an important proof of technological feasibility advancing the technology from TRL5 to TRL7.

Biorefinery industries are in a unique position to lead the way in turning CO2 emissions into added-value chemicals due to their intrinsic keenness towards innovation and their potential to transform their biogenic CO2 waste streams into bio-based chemicals that can be integrated within their own processes in a circular way. CO2SMOS aims to develop a platform of technologies to transform CO2 emissions produced by bio-based industries into a set a of high added-value chemicals with direct use as intermediates for bio-based products. The result is a toolbox combining intensified chemical conversions (electrocatalytic and membrane reactors) and innovative biotechnological solutions based on gas/liquid combined fermentation processes and organic/green-catalysts reaction processes, which allow versatile production, depending on the available resources and the targeted value chains, of seven different bio-based chemicals. These molecules will be validated as renewable CO2-based commodities for the formulation of high-performance biopolymers and renewable chemicals. The five breakthrough technologies involved in CO2SMOS will ensure low energy use (< 50 kWh/kg of CO2-based chemical), low production cost (< 1.75 €/kg), high product yield (up to 68% the ideal yield) and an outstanding GHG-abatement potential (avoiding of up to 10 additional kg of CO2 per each kg used as feedstock), which will contribute to the sustainability and cost competitiveness of the integrated conversion processes. Integration of CO2SMOS concept in existing and emerging biorefineries (supported by Scale Up and Replication plans) will contribute to expand the business portfolio and strengthen the economic base of the sector. A campaign to assess social acceptance of CO2SMOS solutions and to promote awareness of their environmental, social and economic benefits is also foreseen. The consortium counts on academic, RTO and industrial partners with two major actors in the biorefinery sector.

GHG emissions reduction policies to mitigate the alarming climate change can impact carbon-intensive industrial sectors, leading to loss of employment and competitiveness. Current multistage CCU technologies using renewable electricity to yield fuels suffer from low energy efficiency and require large CAPEX. eCOCO2 combines smart molecular catalysis and process intensification to bring out a novel efficient, flexible and scalable CCU technology. The project aims to set up a CO2 conversion process using renewable electricity and water steam to directly produce synthetic jet fuels with balanced hydrocarbon distribution (paraffin, olefins and aromatics) to meet the stringent specifications in aviation. The CO2 converter consists of a tailor-made multifunctional catalyst integrated in a co-ionic electrochemical cell that enables to in-situ realise electrolysis and water removal from hydrocarbon synthesis reaction. This intensified process can lead to breakthrough product yield and efficiency for chemical energy storage from electricity, specifically CO2 per-pass conversion > 85%, energy efficiency > 85% and net specific demand 250 g of jet fuel per day in an existing modular prototype rig that integrates 18 tubular intensified electrochemical reactors. Studies on societal perception and acceptance will be carried out across several European regions. The consortium counts on academic partners with the highest world-wide excellence and exceptional industrial partners with three major actors in the most CO2-emmiting sectors.

The BlackCycle project has an upcycling ambition, targeting to create a circular economy of the end-of-life tyre (ELT) into technical applications like tyre industry by producing high technical second raw materials (SRMs) from ELTs. A key lever is to consider the circular economy of tyre domain: recycle ELT into new tyres. Known technologies in this domain are today limited and this new research project will have the ambition to pass their roadblocks, and deliver new technical raw materials relevant for tyre production or other technical products. This project will proactively integrate these new materials (SRMs) and validate that the progress in all the key tyre performances having environmental impacts is not slowed down. The BlackCycle project aims at creating, developing and optimising a full value chain, from ELT feedstock to SRMs, with no waste of resources in any part of the chain and a specific attention for the environmental impact. Eventually, close to 1 out of every 2 ELT will go through this new recovery process which will be the only virtuous cycle of this magnitude amongst all industrial sectors in the recovery of end of life products. In effectively implementing this change, the European tyre industry will be a world leader in a more sustainable tyre production. Indeed, the main product obtained at the end of the project would be a new tyre where many raw materials come from ELT. In particular, the carbon black, a material representing ~20% of tyre composition, will be fully obtained from oils extracted from waste tyres through the pyrolysis process. Furthermore, several chemical and plasticizers will also be obtained from pyrolytic oil refining. The final product would have a high added value from an environmental point of view, because more than 25% of the total weight would come from recycled ELT.