SusChem at Expoquimia 2014!

Barcelona will be hosting the seventeenth Expoquimia International Chemical Show from 30 September until 3 October and both SusChem Europe and SusChem Espana are organizing activities throughout the conference and exhibition.

On 30 September SusChem Spain will hold its annual General Assembly. Among the topics to be discussed are the use of CO2 as a raw material for the chemical industry, process intensification and the added value that the SusChem network brings to the industry, the wider chemical and process community and society as a whole. In the evening, there will also be a session dedicated to new opportunities to finance research and innovation activities including combining funds for maximum effect.

October 1 sees a session entitled ‘Smart cities: Chemicals inside’. The meeting will be chaired by Prof. Carlos Negro, President of the forum “Chemistry and Society” and will include presentations by Elisa Martin Garijo, Director of Innovation and Technology at IBM, and Antonia Morales from Cefic.

SusChem project workshops
Also on 1 October SusChem FP7 project E4Water is hosting a workshop on ‘Industrial Water Management: New Ways to Improve Efficiency.’ E4Water addresses crucial process industry needs to overcome bottlenecks and barriers for an integrated and energy-efficient water management. Its main objective is to develop, test and validate new integrated approaches for a more efficient and sustainable management of water in the chemical industry, with cross-fertilization possibilities for other industrial sectors.

SusChem Europe and the SPIRE PPP will be presenting on 2 October and SusChem FP7 projects BIO-TIC and R4R (Chemical Regions for Resource Efficiency) will be holding workshops on 3 October. See you there!

Smart Chemistry
Expoquimia takes place at Barcelona's Gran Via Exhibition Centre and will be attended by the leading companies and organizations from the international chemical industry. A major feature of the event is the Smart Chemistry, Smart Future initiative headed by the Spanish Federation of Chemical Industries (FEIQUE) that showcases the sector's capacity to generate wealth and employment and its contribution to improving the well-being of society as a whole.

The Smart Chemistry, Smart Future zone at Expoquimia is based around four main themes where, both now and in the future, the contribution of the chemical sector is absolutely fundamental:

• Smart Cities (how we can make the cities in which we live more sustainable)
• Energy & Water (how to improve the management of our natural resources)
• Life: Health and Food
• New Technologies4U (new technologies and their impact on our daily lives).

Expoquimia is being held in conjunction with Eurosurfas and Equiplast, two benchmark events in the surface treatments and plastics sectors respectively effectively making Barcelona the industrial and scientific capital of the chemical industry in Spain and southern Europe during the event.

For more information contact the conference organisers.

SusChem Spain enabling the Circular Economy

Under the motto ‘Enabling circular economy’, the SusChem España national technology platform is organising the third edition of the Forum Sustainable Chemistry, innovative and competitive companies (3SCICC Forum Sustainable Chemistry), an international meeting aimed to debate and share information on new chemical products and processes that are more efficient, safe and environmentally friendly. This major event takes place in Tarragona, Spain on May 28 and 29. Tarragona is home to the largest chemical cluster in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.

3SCICC Forum Sustainable Chemistry is sponsored by the Spanish Chemical Industry Federation (FEIQUE) and Expoquimia – the International Chemistry Event of Fira de Barcelona together with industrial sponsors Dow Chemicals and Emerson Process Management.

SusChem chairman Dr Klaus Sommer of Bayer and board member Gernot Klotz of Cefic will be presenting at the meeting. More details of the programme can be accessed here.

Circular
The Circular Economy is an economic model that finds ways to reuse products and components and restore their material and energy inputs. And sustainable chemistry innovation provides the fundamentals for making it possible.

A Circular Economy is an industrial system replaces the ‘end-of-life’ concept with restoration and aims for the elimination of waste through the superior design of materials, products and systems, facilitating component separation and making it feasible for manufacturers to collect, re-manufacture and re-distribute their products, thus generating a circular, cradle-to-cradle system.

Circular Economy has an increasing number of supporters as the essential model needed to face the economic, social and resource challenges of the 21st century. The European Commission has chosen to move to this restorative economic system as part of its strategy for Europe 2020, as it drives substantial and lasting improvements in resource productivity. Sustainable chemistry and engineering innovation provides the fundamental basis that can enable the circular economy (new materials, new production systems, sustainable water management etc.).

Raw materials
Critical Raw Materials reducing, reusing, recycling or substitution; state-of-art and new trends in biobased products and biorefineries; new trends and challenges in process optimization or different ways for by-product valorization, are among the topics to be discussed at the 3SCICC Forum Sustainable Chemistry. Cities and industry symbiosis and the solutions chemistry provides to make this possible will also be addressed.

The day before the conference, May 27, will see the opportunity to visit a variety of industrial facilities and research centres in the Tarragona area to see the exciting sustainable chemistry taking place there.

For more information and registration details visit the 3SCICC Forum Sustainable Chemistry website.

SusChem España Stakeholders in Barcelona

SusChem España will be holding its Annual Stakeholder event on 16 November during Expoquimia - Spain’s premier International Chemistry Trade Show that is taking place from 14 to 18 November in Barcelona. The day before the Spanish national platform is also involved with a major cross technology platform event at the same venue.

On 15 November, SusChem España is organising a major workshop with other Spanish national technology platforms entitled "Searching for Innovation at the Knowledge Crossroads". The aim of the workshop is to try and identify areas in which there are opportunities to cooperate, that in turn could lead into new innovative projects.

The following day the SusChem España stakeholder event takes place. The programme includes presentations on the next European Commission Framework Programme (Horizon 2020) and activities carried out both by the European and Spanish technology platforms. Antonia Morales Perez, Innovation Manager at Cefic, will present SusChem Europe’s current activities and prospects for the forthcoming Horizon 2020 programme.

Attendees will also receive information about the various activities and initiatives developed over the last year by the Spanish platform's groups working to define the “Sustainable Chemistry after 2012” roadmap. The stakeholder event will close with an award ceremony for the SusChem Young Chemist Prizes, under the categories of “Innova” and “Futura”

CDTI Forum
Antonia Morales Perez will also be presenting at the III Forum CDTI on 18 November in Madrid where she will outline SusChem’s proposal for a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials that is specifically looking at the development of new innovative materials by design and solutions for the substitution of critical materials. Ms Pilar Aguar, Deputy Head of Unit of the Operational Unit Materials at the European Commission DG Research & Innovation will also be talking on this topic.

CDTI is the Centre for Industrial Technological Development an agency of the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation and organised the forum to discuss the EU 2020 agenda and the general concepts behind the proposed EIPs.

For more information on SusChem España activities please contact Cristina Gonzalez or visit the SusChem España website.