Fretting corrosion is the limiting factor in the life of many plastic injection moulds. Micrometer-deep vents are designed and ground in the mould surfaces to allow air to escape from the mould as the plastic fills the mould cavities. Each time that the mould is closed, the contacting surfaces “adjust” or slip to accommodate machinery errors of form, and this rubbing combined with impact of the vibrations of the moulding machine produces fretting corrosion or wear. The shape and dimensions of the mould are seriously affected also causing the vents to disappear and regrinding is necessary. Eventually, the mould dimension ends up out of specification, and the mould must be scrapped. The burden of fretting corrosion is transversal to all industries relying on injection moulding. CemeCon Scandinavia (CSA) has extensive experience on solving tribological problems in injection mould’s operational environments. Our DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) coating technology is currently in use for dry lubrication of critical sliding/ moving mould parts, allowing for an oil/grease free operation. However, resistance towards fretting wear needs to be significantly improved, which creates the main driver for the current innovation project. With cleanMOULD, we will introduce a novel coating solution to protect critical mould elements from fretting wear, while simultaneously allowing oil-free operation, thus minimizing the risk of contamination in sensitive industries like medical plastics and food packaging. cleanMOULD will significantly contribute towards profitability of its targeted end-users, by increasing mould’s service life up to 10x, while also enabling lower maintenance costs. Successful market introduction of cleanMOULD will equally create substantial value to CSA, with estimated yearly direct revenue around €10 million, 5 years post-project, to which can be summed up to €5 million yearly revenues from licensing.

Fretting wear is the limiting factor in the life of many plastic injection moulds. Each time that the mould is closed during its moulding cycle, the contacting surfaces “adjust” to each other and undergo microscopic vibrational movements that slowly damage these surfaces, leading to severe tear and particle release. Ultimately, the mould needs to be scrapped after repeated regrinding, thus significantly affecting overall mould service life. Since longer productive lifecycles further dilute the heavy upfront investments in casting moulds in injection moulding production pipelines, reducing the impact of fretting corrosion is a fundamental need transversal to all manufacturing industries relying in this type of productive process. Building on CemeCon Scandinavia extensive experience in solving tribological problems in injection mould’s operational environments, cleanMOULD is a novel coating solution, based on a multi-layer DLC formulation that jointly optimizes both the surface hardness and lubricity to minimize the impact of fretting wear. The current project is positioned to untap a very significant business opportunity by preparing our next-generation DLC coating for full market roll-out, while also thoroughly documenting its performance through large demonstration, in fully operational manufacturing pipelines within the premises of key industry players in the injection moulding industry. cleanMOULD has the potential to become a key enabling technology transversal to entire plastic industry. Overall, return-of- investment for cleanMOULD users is expected to be over 20x the expected coating costs, thus providing a very compelling value proposition. In addition, cleanMOULD represents a huge business opportunity for CSA, opening the perspective of adding approx. €14 million over the 5-years post project as gross profits, yielding a global multiplier effect of over 10x for the ratio between the expected profits and the costs of the current innovation project.

Addressing climate change is humanity’s greatest challenge in the 21st century. The European Green Deal has declared that Europe is committed to realizing a climate-neural society by 2050. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport, power, and industry sectors, Europe must urgently change the energy paradigm, shifting to renewables. However, renewables are all intermittent, and facing the storage challenge. Secondary batteries offer highly efficient electrical energy storage capability, and become the key technology to achieve the large-scale application of solar/wind green energy and thus support the deep decarbonization of European energy system. European Commission estimated that the value of battery industry can reach €250 billion by 2025. Existing battery systems still suffer from low energy density and safety issues. There is huge gap between commercial batteries and advanced battery proposed by BATTERY2030+. Employing novel electrode materials are considered as promising strategies to develop next generation high performance batteries. However, these high capacity electrode materials raise significant challenges (dendrite, volume change, and degradation etc.) in practical application, which limit their commercialization prospects. LESIA will develop and construct bio-inspired surfaces/interfaces with electrochemical functionalities for the components of batteries using laser-based fabrication and emerging nanoscale characterisation techniques. LESIA will develop new surficial chemistry, and regulate the decisive electrochemical interfacial processes, and thus address the challenges of the high performance anodes and cathodes for next generation advanced batteries. LESIA will create new paradigm of advanced battery development by using cutting-edge laser-based surface/interface engineering technologies.

BIO4COAT aims to validate at TRL 5 the use of 3 biobased building blocks (1,4-bioBDO, lcDCA, and biomethane) from Novamont’s biorefinery for producing safe and sustainable biobased coating solutions. Two value chains are planned: (1) Novamont will supply first-of-their kind polyester-polyols from 1,4-bioBDO and lcDCA for conversion into polyurethanes by FUNDITEC, to be used to create 1K PUD and 2K PUR in 7 prototypes under the guidance of ICAP-SIRA; (2) Aarhus University will purify biomethane for use by CEMECON in creating DLC coatings via CVD for high-temperature plastic processing tools, validated by LOGOPLASTE. Performance will be tested in terms of surface protection, printability, and controlled release under demanding conditions, with added recyclability, compostability, and no bioaccumulation, across 8 sectors (plastics, hygiene, textiles, agriculture, horticulture, furniture, energy, and construction). CERTH will implement a comprehensive SSbD methodology, guiding the development of biobased coatings with reduce (-20%) GHG emissions, allowing multiple EoL scenarios, and minimizing bioaccumulation risks. Upscaling insights(aligned with the CBE-JU TERRIFIC project), feasibility analyses, and business models will be supported by the University of Padua. KNEIA’s dissemination, exploitation, and communication efforts will maximize the visibility and impact of project outcomes. The analysis and engagement of stakeholder and the clustering activities will be performed at 2 levels: along the overall value chain by KNEIA, and with a focus on technical actors by EUBP which will establish 2 technical working groups with other EU-funded projects. Key impacts are expected in long-term progress in bio-based materials science and engineering, cost savings for industries by 30%, increased biodiversity and environmental health due to reduced pollution and sustainable resource use, expansion of the market for bio-based coatings, and enhanced competitiveness of EU SMEs

CIRCULAR BIOCARBON is a first-of-its-kind flagship biorefinery conceived to valorise organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) into value-added products: diamond-like-carbon coatings, green graphene, tailor-made bio-based fertilisers, or bio-plastic, as well as a variety of intermediate products. In order to maximise replicability and boost potential penetration in the market, the biorefinery will be operated for three years in Spain and Italy, and consistent business and exploitation strategies will be put in place. The CIRCULAR BIOCARBON biorefinery, organised through a pool of cascading technologies, start from anaerobic process steps (after proper pretreatment) of mixed urban waste streams, of which OFMSW is the main one, in order to treat all the biowaste produced by a medium-size city (at the end of the project, a commercial scale biorefinery will be fully operative). The fundamental objective of the CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project is to open up new business frameworks based on a new circular vision of waste treatment in a city towards a sustainable bioeconomy, to which actors leading the territorial waste management schemes and policies will be brought to maximize impact on the market, on policy makers and on society.