SUPREEMO aims to establish the first pre-commercial Rare Earth Elements (REEs) production value chain (TRL7) using European (EU) primary resources as feedstock, developing sustainable, cost-competitive processing, refining and Rare Earth (RE) Permanent Magnet (PM) production technologies in a responsible way complying with local and international safety regulations. This will contribute in securing REE materials supply for the EU industry and strategic sectors which depends 100 % on Chinese imports. The largest end-user of REEs is the PMs industry, that contain neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium as key elements to produce high energy-efficient motors, which are vital for electric mobility and renewable energy technologies. SUPREEMO will exploit the European primary resources from two major EU sites: Fen deposit Norway (largest carbonatite deposit in EU) with >200 Mtonne grading 1.2-1.5 % Total Rare Earth Oxides and secondly, exploring extraction technologies related to deposits from uranium extraction in the Czech Republic, technologies which is also intended for implementation in direct extraction during uranium beneficiation related to nuclear energy supply chains. SUPREEMO will capitalise on technologies demonstrated in previous projects to develop innovative, environmentally friendly, socially and economically sustainable REEs processing technologies. During phase 1, the partners will optimise the stand alone technologies to elucidate the final integrated process flowsheet with the best processing parameters in phase 2, guided by LCA and LCCA. This will be validated at the piloting activities in phase 3. Finally, the production of 50-100 kg of REO at similar cost to commercial value from Chinese production will be demonstrated at TRL7 by processing ~ 10 tonnes of ores, and the production of Rare Earth Alloy for the manufacturing of 50 kg PMs. Results will be communicated and disseminated to key stakeholders and a concrete first business plan will be set to attract more investors and stimulate a competitive, resilient and sustainable REEs production value chain ready for full-scale deployment in the EU market.

The sustainable development goals of the UN and climate targets of the EU require that all economic sectors sharply reduce fossil-based use. However, the agricultural sector has the potential to not only greatly defossilize, but even produce energy – and that not to the detriment of, but alongside with food production. Photovoltaic (PV) has become dramatically more competitive relative to other renewable energy sources, and is now as competitive as wind power. Currently, PV-parks are installed on large land areas, leading to loss of land for cultivating crops. The ideal solution is provided by combined agro-voltaic systems with dual land use for crop production and simultaneous power production. HyPErFarm joins multiple types of actors with the objective to optimize viable agrivoltaic business models as well as test the marketability of the products, via inclusion of new innovative PV technologies (PV H2-production, bifacial PV-panels), radically new crop production systems, stakeholder innovation workshops, and citizen-consumer acceptance, public perception analysis and farmer adoption studies. HyPErFarm also develops and demonstrates new ways of utilizing and distributing the energy produced on-farm via heat pumps, e-robots, hydrogen production, storage and use, and e-driven pyrolysis of biomass side-streams that captures carbon while also improving soil quality. The project’s impact is that agrivoltaic systems are moved upwards to TRL7-8, and attractive new business models are accessible for farmers. HyPErFarm thus supports a game-changing radical innovation and contributes to the building of a low fossil-carbon, climate-resilient future EU farming that can also supply local communities with power and hydrogen. HyPErFarm partners have the ability to adopt and further develop the new farming practices, to provide the new technologies required, and to adopt new APV-business models that will allow continued food production on land used for power production.

The PLATIRUS project aims at reducing the European deficit of Platinum Group Metals (PGMs), by upscaling to industrial relevant levels a novel cost-efficient and miniaturised PGMs recovery and raw material production process. The targeted secondary raw materials will be autocatalysts, electronic waste (WEEE) and tailings and slags from nickel and copper smelters, opening-up an important range of alternative sources of these critical raw materials, with the potential to substitute a large amount of primary raw materials which are becoming more and more scarce in Europe. For the first time five of the major research centres in Europe will collaborate in developing and fine tuning the most advanced recovery processes for PGMs. This joint effort will lead to a unique exchange of know-how and best practices between researchers all over Europe, aiming at the selection of the recycling process and the preparation of the Blueprint Process Design that will set the basis for a new PGM supply chain in the EU. Two primary and secondary material producers with a consolidated business model will carry out validation of the innovative recovery processes in an industrially relevant environment by installing and testing them in an industrially relevant environment and benchmarking with the currently adopted recovery processes. A recycling company will provide a link to market introduction by manufacturing autocatalysts with second-life PGMs obtained via the PLATIRUS technology. Two large automotive companies will validate the material produced through the new recovery process, and ensure end-user industry driven value chains for recovered PGM materials. LCA, economic and environment assessment of the whole process will be led by a specialized consultancy company. Finally, the PLATIRUS project will be linked to European and extra-European relevant stakeholders, research activities and industries, with a solid dissemination, communication and exploitation plan.

VALUEMAG project aims to provide groundbreaking solutions for microalgae production and harvesting as well as scaling up biomass transformation systems in order to provide new technologies for aquatic/marine biomass integrated bio-refineries. Production-cultivation and harvesting objectives are achieved by using magnetic nanotechnologies: superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPAN) are introduced into microalgae protoplasm in order to confer them magnetic properties. Magnetic microalgae (MAGMA) are immobilized onto a soft magnetic conical surface (SOMAC) and covered with a thin layer of continuously circulating water. A greenhouse hosts SOMAC system to exposure MAGMA to sunlight, minimize contamination and temperature-humidity uncertainties. Quantity of water is minimized and harvesting will be fast and inexpensive. These innovations permit optimum cultivation, enhance biomass productivity and dramatically lower costs of biomass production. Biomass is directly utilized by VALUEMAG multi-facilities bio-refinery for the production molecules for pharmaceutical, nutraceuticals, food additives and cosmetics. Using selected microalgae strains, natural products will be extracted by supercritical CO2 extraction, while a new selective magnetic separation method for precise selection of value-added products will be also developed. To reduce the amount of greenhouse gases realized in the environment and further lower costs of biomass, CO2 produced by transformation processes as well as water are recycled and used to enhance microalgae growth rate. All together VALUEMAG achievements will perfectly meet the demand of capturing the potential of aquatic biomass. The project outputs will bring to the market a broad variety of value-added products in sustainable way. Finally, competitiveness of the European industry will be improved since there are not pilot installations or state-of-the-art bio-refineries utilizing magnetic nanotechnology to cultivate microalgae.

The BIOSKOH project will pave the way for a Second Generation European Circular Bioeconomy by showcasing how a number Innovation Stepping Stones can realise a breakthrough in techno-economic viability of lignocellulosic biorefineries. It will do so through a two stage investment process and development path to realise the largest (110 kton) second generation (2G) biorefinery in Europe. It starts from a brownfield industrial site in the eastern part of the Slovak Republic to realise the 1st stage Flagship plant to produce 55 kton of cellulosic ethanol per year for EU bio-fuel mandates. Partners include the full value chain starting from land owners and feedstock producers, supply chain experts and an agronomical research partner to set-up a new biomass value chain exploiting large amounts of currently unused crop residues (kton/year), and developing newly grown dedicated crops on marginal land (total circa 320 kton/year), as such revitalising the regional economy. Technology providers (Biochemtex, Novozymes and Lesaffre) developed, tested and demonstrated in the only available semi-industrial scale 2G biorefinery research plant, an innovative integrated pre-treatment, hydrolyses and fermentation package, with higher yield and lower CAPEX which will now be upscaled to the 1st of a kind commercial scale Flagship, to be built by Energochemica. Aim is to showcase techno-economic viability based on a sound business plan and 4 stepping stones (yield, biomass cost, brownfield and industrial symbiosis). Dedicated innovation actions by expert partners include assessing increased cascading potential through lignin valorisation and 2G bio-chemicals, LCA, Socio-economic impact analyses, business plan for a 2nd investment round, exploitation, dissemination and replication actions to various bio-economy clusters in Europe, thus giving both a short term and a long term contribution to the European Industrial Renaissance and bio-economy.