KETs Impact: National funding promotes Process Analytical Technologies

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our final KETs success story focuses on the PAC (Process Analytical Chemistry) network, an Austrian industrial research initiative for process analysis that brings together industrial and academic research expertise and has been funded by a combination of national and regional sources.

"imPACts delivered”: the Austrian platform for Process Analytical Chemistry

imPACts creates IMPACT through unique partnership

Member State funding creates unique collaboration in a PAC platform of more than 20 partners

PAT – Process Analytical Technologies have an immense impact on the productivity, efficiency and safety of large volume chemical production. Investment in this expertise pays off in securing the position of the process industry. 

In Austria, already in 2010, the research platform PAC – Process Analytical Chemistry was founded, based on a national funded research project. 

The consortium placed a strong focus on further development of PAT in Spectroscopy and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) based on inline Rheology, on Process-Modelling and Process-Understanding, together leading to a closed-loop and tight real-time Process Control and Optimisation.

New measurement technologies were invented, application demonstrators implemented and evaluated in industry, high ranking journal papers were published, and patents were filed.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved? 

In the consortium more than 20 partners from industry and research institutions cooperate and perform application-oriented research as well as strategic research. 

Impact

• Technology: more than 10 technology demonstrators evaluated, six patents filed
• Economic & Environmental: all process optimisation targeting efficiency issues
• Social: 28 PhD, 34 Master, 28 Bachelor Theses; internal training scheme established
• Scientific: 75 journal publications, > 200 conference contributions, five conferences
• European Link: The PAC-network was sustainably established in SusChem-AT - the SusChem National Technology Platform (NTP) in Austria

More information

The projects received funding from the Austrian Ministries BMVIT and BMWFW, the Federal State of Upper Austria and the Federal State of Lower Austria.

imPACts: “Industrial Methods for Process Analytical Chemistry - From Measurement Technologies to Information Systems (imPACts)”

imPACts (contract # 843546) and PAC (contract # 825340) are Austrian COMET K-projects.

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: SME instrument brings innovative food supplement to market

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our penultimate KETs success story number focuses on a project, LIFEOMEGA, funded under the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument to develop an innovative food supplement consisting of a high concentrated emulsion of the Omega-3 fatty acid EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid). Omega-3 is utilised as a treatment in psoriasis, arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis, chronic inflammatory, cancer, high blood Triglycerides (TGs), retinal diseases and cardiovascular failure.

LIFEOMEGA Project

Developing an innovative highly concentrated Omega 3 food supplement

EU SME Instrument supports breakthrough innovation project with market-creating potential

Solutex is an innovative SME continuously investing in research and innovation to offer high quality products for nutritional and pharmaceutical industries. Solutex is in the forefront of research in Omega-3 to improve the quality of life and nutrition of cancer patients. LIFEOMEGA-cancer, considered as one chemotherapy essential nutrient co-adjuvant, is one of the latest products. The scale up of technology to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 8, has been made possible with EU SME funding. 

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved?

For an SME, partnerships with both RTOs and large companies is key to long-term success. Solutex has a partnership for a commercial agreement with one the most important pharmaceutical groups in Spain. Collaboration with hospitals and clinics has been essential for the success of the project and to carry out the clinical trials needed. After the preliminary research, carried out with company’s own resources, Solutex successfully applied for a Phase-I SME Instrument, and for a Phase-II SME instrument. The funding received has been fundamental to develop the final product and the scale-up.

Impact

• The social impact for cancer patients’ treatments is very important. With the new product, the quality of life of cancer patients is improved. Chemotherapy effects become tolerable and hospitalisation time is reduced. 
• The new product is an essential nutrient adjuvant in chemotherapy. The medical benefits of the product are appreciated. Preliminary findings show that Omega-3 supplement increases chemotherapy effectiveness. 

With the funding received, the time to the market was reduced by about three years, a parameter of paramount importance for an SME. Additionally, it brings the opportunity to open to new markets and new partnerships in the pharma and nutraceutical sectors. 

More information

LIFEOMEGA: Innovative highly concentrated Omega-3 Food Supplement (Horizon 2020 / SME Instrument 1 GA number 683658)

LIFEOMEGA: Innovative highly concentrated Omega-3 Specialized Nutrition Product (Horizon 2020 / SME Instrument 2 GA number 755889)

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: Self-assembling polymers enable efficient semiconductor fab

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our ninth KETs success story highlights PLACYD, a FP7 project funded via the Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership (ECSEL) Joint Undertaking, and led by Arkema to establish a dedicated material manufacturing facility to produce block copolymers meeting the rigorous standards required for use in industry as nanolithographic templates for electronics and semiconductors. PLACYD brought together leading researchers and industries to allow for the first time the integration of synthesis through to wafer scale production and system/device characterisation developing an industrial solution including all key technologies including Materials, Metrology, Integration Processes, and Design tools.

Pilot Line for Self-Assembly Copolymers Delivery

A disruptive technology breakthrough strengthened EU leadership in semiconductors

Public funding aligned an eco-innovation system. Synergies enabled a breakthrough development

The semiconductor industry economy relies on geometrical scaling of transistors to insure performances improvement, power consumption reduction and cost per transistor reduction. Therefore, the well-known Moore’s law, relating to the reduction of devices’ critical dimensions by a factor of two every 18 months, has been driving the semiconductor roadmap. Up to now, devices scaling has been enabled by continuous improvements of optical lithography. Directed Self Assembly (DSA) lithography is a disruptive patterning technology that no longer relies on optics but on the polymer’s characteristics (composition and molecular weight). In DSA technology, the pattern is included within the material as the molecular weight defines the critical dimensions and the pitch the composition of the pattern.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved? 

PLACYD project relied on a strong consortium gathering companies and academic laboratories that covered the full eco innovation system and all necessary skills from material to end-users including process and equipment manufacturers. The success of the project was established through synergies and complementarities of the partners along the value chain.

In DSA technology “the pitch is in the bottle”, the polymer and resists quality and reproducibility were key to the success of the technology. Therefore, specific efforts in developing new processes as well as new metrology techniques have been carried out leading to excellent performance and the state of the art in this sector. The metallic contamination of the resist is bellow 10ppb for all metals, the organic purity of the polymer is greater than 99.9% thanks to a unique proprietary technique that allows to discriminate homopolymers from copolymers and the copolymer dispersity has been reduced to less than 1.05.

On the patterning quality aspect, CEA-Leti developed new integration schemes that allows a wide range of configurations while insuring optimum pattern performances. 

Impact

• Increasing European leadership in microelectronics and more specifically in lithography both in terms of academic recognition (more than 60 papers and conferences), Intellectual Property position (i.e. more than 25 patent families were applied for within the project, half of them are already public) and in terms of industrial leadership.
• Commercial products have been launched based on PLACYD results. On the material side, ARKEMA launches its Nanostrength EO material suite that includes a full range of DSA resists for both lamellar and cylindrical patterns ranging from 20 nm to 50 nm pitches. On the design side, project partner MENTOR commercialises the DSA module within its EDA CALIBRE software suite. 

In summary, PLACYD allowed the development of a full DSA solution that covers all key axes of the technology (material, process, metrology and design) strengthening European leadership in semiconductor technology and demonstrating the compatibility of DSA with manufacturing requirements. Moreover, commercial products have been derived from PLACYD developments: the DSA material suite by ARKEMA and DSA software module by MENTOR.

More information

PLACYD - Pilot Line For Self Assembly Copolymer Delivery (FP7 / ECSEL JU GA 621277)

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: Turning rice straw waste into biobased chemical building blocks

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our KETs success story number 8 highlights the WALEVA project funded by the EU under the LIFE / LIFE+ environmental programme and the associated Spanish national research project BIOSOS that demonstrated how the environmental damage from the burning of rice straw (a waste product of rice cultivation) can be eliminated, and the waste used as raw material for the production of the biobased chemical building block levulinic acid with multiple uses in consumer products from pharmaceuticals to biofuels and polymers to food.

WALEVA Technology

Fostering a new value chain producing high value products from lignocellusic wastes

Synchronised combination of Member State and EU funding accelerates breakthrough technology to market

The aim of Técnicas Reunidas’ (TR) WALEVA technology is to transform a lignocellusic waste (rice straw) into levulinic acid, a high value-added product which is currently considered one of the 12 most promising chemical platforms according to the United States Department of Energy. Levulinic acid is a monomer subject to significant industrial demand since, after its chemical transformation, it can potentially be applied to several industrial sectors such as pharmaceuticals, fuels, polymers, food and chemistry in general.

WALEVA technology falls under biotechnology area, which is one the major Key Enabling Technologies defined by the European Commission. WALEVA has reached a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 7 and first steps to commercialisation have been taken.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved? 

Public Private Partnerships are essential for TR’s R&I activities including the development of WALEVA technology. During the initial stages of development TR received public funding from the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) under the CENIT Programme (large, long term, applied research, collaborative projects). After these, TR decided to go a step further in the TRL and applied for a European LIFE+ project to scale-up and demonstrate the viability of the technology in collaboration with the Centre of Scientific and Technological Research of Extremadura (CICYTEX) and the Spanish Chemical Industry Federation (FEIQUE). 

Impact

WALEVA technology will foster a new value chain that will produce high value products from residues ensuring the economic feasibly for each step in the chain: farmers, waste managers, biobased industries and end-users. This business model puts into practice the concept of Circular Economy and contributes to several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as, Climate Action. 

Preliminary results demonstrate the economic feasibility of WALEVA technology for scales starting at the range of 10 000 tons of levulinic acid per year. As for market deployment, levulinic acid is expected to play a key role in the Green Chemistry megatrend. 

WALEVA will contribute significantly to improve rice sector sustainability, by reducing CO2 emissions up to an 80% compared to current practice of burning of rice straw. Moreover, WALEVA will contribute to economic development and wealth creation in rural areas that heavily depend on this crop.

More information
EU-Project 'LIFE WALEVA - From Whatever Residue into Levulinic Acid – an innovative way to turn waste into resource' (LIFE13 ENV/ES/001165)

Proyecto CENIT BIOSOS: Biorefinerias Sostenibles (CEN-20091040) financiado par Abengoa Bioenergy New technologies (ABNT) y el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion del Gobierno de Espana

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: Optimising Resource Efficiency in Process Plants

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our seventh success story looks at the FP7 project MORE that sought to monitor resource efficiency during daily operations of large production plants to influence operational decisions and ensure that plant efficiency is optimised and environmental footprint is constantly minimised.

MORE – Real-time Monitoring and Optimisation of Resource Efficiency in Integrated Processing Plants 

Real-time data and online decision support systems enable IMPACT

MORE has brought the computation, visualisation and use of resource efficiency indicators to a new level by evaluating them online in daily operations, visualising them for operators and managers in a transparent fashion and using them in decision support and optimisation

MORE was a STREP (Small and medium scale focused research project) supported by the European Commission in the field of Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies (NMP) aiming at identifying resource efficiency indicators (REIs) that can support operational decisions in processing plants through the use of real-time data and the implementation of dedicated online decision support systems. MORE ran from November 2013 to February 2017.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved? 

Within MORE, the academic and research partners Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain and VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, the solutions providers LeiKon GmbH and S•PACT GmbH, Germany, the industrial partners PETROLEOS DEL NORTE SA (Petronor), Spain, BASF Personal Care and Nutrition GmbH, INEOS Köln GmbH, Germany and LENZING AG, Austria as well as the coordinating consultant inno TSD, France collaborated impressively to develop theoretical results, implement them in practice, publish and standardise them. 

Impact

As key results MORE defined principles for the definition of real-time Resource Efficiency Indicators (REIs) and proposed indicators for integrated chemical plants to be used in the daily operations of continuous and batch processes. They significantly extend available indicators as they cover resources overall and are based on the processing of real-time data that is available in the monitoring and control systems and from innovative analytical measurements. They form the basis for necessary steps from monitoring to improving resource efficiency through model-based real-time decision support provided to plant operators and plant managers.

Technical achievements were reported through the implementation in industrial cases. Two examples:

• At Petronor the MORE partners optimised the distribution of hydrogen. Petronor estimates an economic gain of between EUR one million to EUR five million per annum equivalent to 3-5% of cost savings and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 3.5%. 
• At Lenzing, the specific steam consumption together with the overall cycle cost of the evaporator system was optimised with an economic impact of EUR 575 000 to EUR 825 000 per annum coupled with a significant reduction of direct CO2 emissions from the site by about 0.3%. 

More information
MORE – ‘Real-time Monitoring and Optimization of Resource Efficiency in Integrated Processing Plants’ (FP7 GA 604068) 

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’.

KETs Impact: 3D-printing for on-demand production

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

The sixth success story in this summer series features a project that developed a successful business model based on rapid, on-demand manufacture of individual spare parts. Exploitation should significantly reduce warehouse stock and associated costs: DIRECTSPARE. Rapid manufacturing technologies, such as 3D-printing (aka Additive manufacturing), can enable fast manufacture of often-complex parts. 

3D-Printing polymer materials

Technology breakthroughs enabled the creation of new business models, investments and jobs

For Evonik DIRECTSPARE was an important project within a longer period of research, development and innovation concerning material for additive manufacturing. Without EU public funding, this project would not have taken place. This would have extended the time to market considerably, resulting in a high risk of being passed by competitors from outside the EU. 

Evonik has performed R&D on polymer materials for 3D-printing for about 20 years and is now commercially producing its first 3D-printing materials. A part of the R&D was done within the EU-Project DIRECTSPARE. A growing quantity of product types in every market and every sector of industry require large warehouses to keep stock for spare parts, with corresponding high costs and complex logistics. This emerging problem is caused by continuously decreasing product lifetime, decreasing time-to-market and increasing regulatory affairs. DIRECTSPARE aimed to find a solution using additive manufacturing (AM) technology, enabling economically viable, and on demand manufacturing of spare parts. 

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved? 

The project consortium consisted of technology providers, engineering companies, equipment producers, material producers, manufacturers, users, management consultants and academia. The DIRECTSPARE project has delivered several business models that allow SMEs to provide local services. Possibilities and challenges for obtaining cost reduction on stocks and warehousing have been identified. The project also learned that to obtain waste reduction and environmental benefits, a life cycle analysis approach needs to be used. One demonstrator part indeed proved that quality improvement, based on use information, can be achieved resulting in lower costs and better margins.

The objective of the DIRECTSPARE business model was for manufacturers to rapidly produce only those spare parts that are required, at a location close to the equipment that needs to be repaired. And also to improve the quality of the spare parts along the way.

The project analysed seven demonstrator parts. The functional and material requirements and the cost model of the original part were taken as the point of departure or baseline. The project team analysed the possibilities to manufacture similar parts using AM. The design, engineering aspects, material selection, production methods, quality issues and business economics of all of these parts were taken into consideration. 

Impact

The project delivered several breakthrough innovations on materials, engineering, process management and quality management. Three viable business models were developed. DIRECTSPARE created a significant networking platform for further development of new 3D-printing powders at Evonik. In February 2018 a production plant for polyamide 12 (PA 12) high performance powders, mainly for the additive manufacturing market became operational in Marl, Germany. The PA 12 material is used in automotive and lightweight design as well as in oil and gas pipelines. In addition to current applications in the automotive sector, Evonik is also very well positioned for the future production of hybrid and electric vehicles. Furthermore, the material is used in the medical sector and in 3D-printing. The investment in a new polyamide production plant secured and created around 10 new jobs.

More information
DIRECTSPARE – ‘Strengthening the industries’ competitive position by the development of a logistical and technological system for “high performance spare parts” that is based on on-demand production’ (FP7 GA 213424)

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: Creating a paradigm shift in water treatment in the chemical industry

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our fourth success story involves the E4Water: a FP7 project that SusChem and the Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WssTP) were directly involved with. The chemical industry provides the highest potential for increasing eco-efficiency in industrial water management and the project addressed crucial process industry needs, to overcome bottlenecks and barriers to enable integrated and energy efficient water management. The main objective was to develop, test and validate new integrated approaches, methodologies and process technologies for a more efficient and sustainable management of water in the chemical industry that could also be adopted in other major industrial sectors.

Water fit-for-purpose management

Economically and ecologically efficiency in the European Chemical Industry

Public funding brought an Innovation Ecosystem together to take on a significant challenge to develop and demonstrate eco-efficient industry water management

Water is a scarce resource and a key element for the development of our society and economy. The chemical industry, as a water user and solution provider of innovative products, technologies and services, offers significant potential for increasing eco-efficiency in industrial water management. To deal with critical challenges, such as the need to reduce water use, wastewater production and energy use, an EU FP7 funded project applied new research and development concepts to boost eco-efficiency and sustainability. E4Water has addressed a wide range of aspects relevant for an efficient integrated industrial water management in practice. Developments provided and demonstrated in the six case studies comprise: utilisation of alternative water sources; treatment of organic and inorganic wastewater streams and concentrates; recovery of valuables and energy from wastewater; linking process water and cooling water networks; combining different scales in water management (process – plant – site – local – regional); introducing tools to optimise water management; Life Cycle Assessment of selected measures; considering regulatory framework aspects. The success of the E4Water project has shown what is possible in the chemical and related process industry sectors in terms of ‘fit for purpose’ water management effectively decoupling industrial production from the use of fresh water, other natural resources and energy. The outcome of E4Water strengthens both, the leadership of the European Water Technology Industry and of position of the European Process Industries.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved?

The E4Water project did create a complementing consortium with partners from nine EU countries: large chemical enterprises, leading European water sector companies, innovative research and technological development (RTD) centres and universities active in the area of water management. The European Technology Platform for Water (WssTP), the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry (SusChem), the German Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (DECHEMA), the SPIRE Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and water authorities were also linked through their members in the project. 

Impact

• Economic impact: Significant economic benefit can be gained, for example, operating expenditure (OPEX) was reduced by up to 30% for every m3 of saved freshwater/year (depending on local conditions); or eliminating the need for incineration (e.g. 5 000 tonnes/annum/plant) together with establishing a business case, leading to revenue generation.
• Environmental impact: 

1. Reduced fresh water uptake of 40-80% resulting in freshwater savings of ~3 million m³/year in one case. 
2. Reduced wastewater production of 30-80%, with close to 100% (loop closure) in one case and resulting in reduction of waste water production by ~2.5 million m3/year in another case. 
3. Resource recovery, efficiently extracting resources from water and returning these to the prime process or a local increase in resource efficiency by use of algae. 
4. Reduced energy use of up to 20% by using low energy technology, heat recovery, or optimising the integrated process with the use of improved modelling.

• Social impact: Water is a key to resource efficiency, climate action and other major societal challenges: Efficient water management is also essential to enhancing resource efficiency, improving energy efficiency and thereby tackling climate change and ensuring the continuing supply of raw materials. The results are also key to implementing process intensification concepts that will form the basis of the chemical and process plants of the future. The E4Water resulted in strengthening the competitive position for Europe's process industry and water industry and keeping Europe an attractive location for industry.

More information
E4Water - Economically and Ecologically Efficient Water Management in the European Chemical Industry (FP7 GA 280756)

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: The SUNLIQUID® and LIGNOFLAG Projects

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our second highlighted success story is built around the BBI JU Horizon 2020 project LINGOFLAG that aims to optimise the efficiency and increase the capacity of Clariant’s unique flagship plant for the production of cellulosic ethanol from agricultural residues (such as straw) based on its sunliquid® technology as a significant step towards a biobased, circular economy in Europe.

Agricultural residues into biobased chemicals

Innovative process technology reduces Green House Gas (GHG) emissions

The realisation of a first-of-its-kind flagship production plant using a new technology is always a high-risk project with significant higher costs compared to subsequent plants. The support through public-private funded projects helps to de-risk the investment in a production plant and leverages private capital in this important industry sector.

Clariant’s sunliquid® process converts lignocellulosic agricultural residues, such as cereal straw, into cellulosic ethanol or other biobased chemicals in a way that is highly efficient, economic, energy-neutral and sustainable. Sunliquid® contributes to the political objectives of reducing GHG emissions in the transport sector, to support the transformation from a fossil-based economy to a biobased, circular economy through creation of green jobs, especially in rural areas, mobilisation of currently underutilised agricultural residues, boosts to local economies and creation of additional business opportunities, and creation of a sustainable and competitive source of domestic renewable energy for the EU. Sunliquid® is a biotechnological process and hence contributes to the KET biotechnology.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved?

The sunliquid® process was developed by Clariant for more than 10 years to overcome major technological hurdles like the need for high yields, low energy consumption, and a stable and economic process of cellulosic ethanol production. During this time the process was developed from Technology Readiness level (TRL) 4 to TRL 8. The maturity of the process was developed in pilot plant scale in Munich, Germany. As a subsequent step within the process development the technology was further up-scaled to demonstration scale with Clariant’s pre-commercial plant in Straubing, Germany. This plant is operational since June 2012 and successfully demonstrated the process in an operational and integrated environment. Clariant’s sunliquid® technology is now ready for a flagship production plant for lignocellulosic ethanol.

Various development steps and parts of the sunliquid® process received and still receive funding. The funded projects on Bavarian, National and European level as well the partnership with the region Straubing enabled Clariant to develop the technology and still supports the proof of techno-economic viability of the sunliquid® technology at commercial scale.

Impact

Clariant is investing in a new commercial-scale plant for the production of cellulosic ethanol made from agricultural residues, based on the sunliquid® technology, in the southwestern part of Romania. This undertaking will have the following impact:

• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of up to 95%
• Clariant investment in southwestern Romania of approx. EUR 150 million
• Number of jobs: 80 direct and 300 indirect. 800–900 during construction phase in an underdeveloped region of the country with unemployment rates of 20%
• Additional income for farmers and local businesses: >EUR 20 million
• Additional tax generated in the region: >EUR 1 million annually for the next 20 years
• Regional Development: Industrial plant using agricultural residue as feedstock in a strong agricultural economy along with energy integration of actors along the whole value chain

More information
SUNLIQUID - Large scale demonstration plant for the production of cellulosic ethanol (FP7 GA number 322386)

LIGNOFLAG - Commercial flagship plant for bioethanol production (Horizon 2020/ BBI JU GA number 709606)

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

KETs Impact: The CONSENS Project

The recent SusChem White paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’ included a number of success stories highlighting publicly funded innovation involving KETs and the SusChem News blog is featuring a selection of these fruitful 'SusChem inspired' initiatives.

KETs are technologies selected for their ability to address global challenges, support the development of new products, and stimulate economic growth.

Sustainable chemistry is essential to the technological advance of KETs including advanced materials, advanced manufacturing technologies, industrial biotechnology, micro and nanoelectronics, nanotechnology and photonics. SusChem's key enabling technologies provide the critical building blocks for the solutions needed to achieve a sustainable low carbon circular economy. You can find out more here.

Our first highlighted success story is on the SPIRE Horizon 2020 project CONSENS (Integrated Control and Sensing for Sustainable Operation of Flexible Intensified Processes) that has paved the way for the factory of the future by developing novel sensors and integrated process control techniques.

Sustainable operation of flexible intensified processes 

Digital technologies enable the migration from batch to flexible continuous intensified processes

Public funding facilitates the fruitful collaboration of seven companies from the chemical industry and eight excellent European partners from academia, research and technology

The future competitiveness of the European chemical industry depends on its ability to deliver high quality and high value products at competitive prices in a sustainable fashion, and to adapt quickly to changing customer needs. The use of flexible intensified continuous processes is a promising strategy towards this goal, because they give access to new and difficult to produce chemical compounds, lead to better product uniformity and reduce the consumption of raw materials and energy drastically. Moreover, it facilitates flexible and mobile production in more efficient and smaller plants and enables companies to bring new products quickly to the market. As an analysis within the former SusChem flagship project F³ Factory has shown, a fully automated process operation is a prerequisite to realise these benefits.

Therefore, the main goal of the CONSENS project was to advance the continuous production of high-value products that meet high quality demands in flexible intensified continuous plants by introducing novel digital technologies such as: new online sensors with capabilities that are not available on the market, novel closed-loop control methods for flexible operation and high-quality levels, as well as data-based and simulation-based methods to ensure optimal operation of the controlled system.

How was the breakthrough innovation achieved? 

The development work was steered by the needs of the industrial partners. Three commercially relevant case studies were selected that reflect the requirements: an intensified pharmaceutical synthesis, a continuous polymerisation process, and the continuous formulation of complex liquids. The key success factor was to consider sensors, closed-loop control, monitoring solutions, soft-sensors, and process dynamics in an integrated approach. This led to holistic control solutions that were validated very successfully in the pilot plants.

KETs

Impact
From the results achieved in the three case studies, we can conclude financial savings of EUR 265 million/year, a reduction of CO2 emissions by more than 490 000 tonnes/year, and less consumption of non-renewable raw materials of 176 000 tonnes/year in the related industries in Europe by enabling the migration from traditional batch processes to flexible intensified continuous processes.

It is expected that the market share of European chemical production plants on the global market will increase by ca. 3% due to better quality, innovative products and higher competitiveness.

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CONSENS – Integrated Control and Sensing for Sustainable Operation of Flexible Intensified Processes (Horizon 2020/ SPIRE GA number 636942).

Read the SusChem White Paper ‘Impact: Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in Horizon Europe’

SusChem and KETs in Horizon Europe

SusChem has updated and enlarged its position paper on the potential impact of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in the next EU Research and Innovation (R&I) Framework Programme: Horizon Europe. The paper, originally published in February, outlines SusChem’s views on KETs in relation to sustainable chemistry and now includes 11 case study examples derived from SusChem inspired FP7 and Horizon 2020 projects.

The paper 'Impact: Key Enabling Technologies in Horizon Europe' calls for strong support for EU future technology competitiveness and argues that sustainable chemistry is essential for the technological advance of many KETs from advanced materials to photonics and industrial biotechnology.

SusChem believes that that Horizon Europe should firmly embrace KETs as drivers of technology development for jobs and growth and the white paper focuses on their potential positive impact on society.

KETs of specific interest to SusChem, such as advanced materials, advanced process technologies and industrial biotechnology, are essential to address societal challenges and accelerate the development of a low-carbon economy, circular economy and enable the energy transition.

SusChem also recognises the need to integrate digital technologies into process technologies, materials development and new business models. SusChem believes that synergies between current KETs and new digital KETs can accelerate the creation of new markets, growth and jobs.

Create, develop, leverage

The SusChem White Paper details the major technology developments and initiatives needed to:

• Create Advanced Materials for use in energy efficiency (e.g., light weight), renewable electricity production and energy storage (e.g., batteries elements), or smart functionalities responding to stimuli (e.g., self-repair).
• Develop Advanced Process Technologies, including Industrial Biotechnology, for more sustainable production including through utilisation of alternative carbon feedstock (waste, biomass, CO2) and alternative energy sources.
• Leverage Digital Technologies for use in advanced process control and materials modelling, to enable disruptive business models and to create new customer experiences.

Examples

All three areas give examples of how the KETs can make a difference to achieving societal policy goals and are illustrated by case study examples from completed SusChem projects.

The paper calls for on the European Commission to ensure strong support for KETs in Horizon Europe. You can download and read the report here.

KETs 4.0 in Horizon Europe

On 24 April 2018, the Commission’s High Level Group on Industrial Technologies released its Re-finding industry – Defining Innovation report, which makes recommendations on EU research and innovation priorities for industry in the next funding programme (FP9, now named Horizon Europe). A preliminary version of the report was released to coincide with EU Industry Days event in February 2018.

The European Commission appointed the High-level Strategy Group on Industrial Technologies to assess, discuss, and recommend support for research and innovation in the area of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) – and area of intense interest for SusChem.

The report proposes two new KETs: artificial intelligence, and security and connectivity. The group also advises that, while biotechnology should be broadened to “life sciences”, the EU has to continue to prioritise advanced manufacturing technologies, advanced materials and nanotechnologies, micro-/nano-electronics and photonics.

With the right level of ambition and investment, KETs will contribute to support growth and democracy through stronger citizens’ engagement, and prosperity through more equality and better jobs.

Industry innovation
Pierre Barthelemy, Cefic executive director for innovation said: “Cefic welcomes the recommendations of the HLG to have digitalisation integrated into the KETs, in order to advance processes technologies, materials development and new business model creation.”

In this report, the HLG acknowledges a strong EU economy requires a strong industry. Economic growth should be coupled with manufacturing and service. “If Europe wants to be strong in manufacturing, we will need innovation and a new industry policy that gives high priority to KETs,” concluded Barthelemy.

KETs enable cross-sectorial industrial application and are instrumental in addressing societal challenges. The HLG recommends – in view of the Digital transformation and upcoming Horizon Europe / FP9 Framework programme – the following changes for KETs:

KETs conference

KETs will be discussed at the upcoming conference on “The Role of Key Enabling Technologies for Europe’s Competitiveness” organised by , the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the European Union, the German chemical industry association (VCI) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI) on Tuesday, 15 May 2018, from 15:30 to 18:30.

The event will take place at the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the European Union, Rue Jacques de Lalaing 8-14, 1040 Brussels. Prior registration is compulsory for this event.

Re-finding Industry’s role in FP9, KETs and PPPs

At the EU Industry Days event on 23 February 2018 European Commissioner Carlos Moedas (right) launched the conference report ‘Re-Finding Industry’ from the High-Level Strategy Group on Industrial Technologies. His speech outlined the  Group's preliminary findings on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) strategy, their role in a future emboldened European innovation landscape, and showed close alignment with SusChem thinking on KETs, PPPs and the forthcoming European Research and Innovation framework programme FP9.

Commissioner Moedas described three interrelated drivers of a new momentum for innovation in Europe:

• Science to develop the new ideas and technologies of the future
• Start-ups and SMEs to develop the breakthrough innovations, combining technologies and new business models, and 
• Industry to scale up innovations and create economic and social impact.

All three components required support for success and he highlighted industry’s significant involvement in Horizon 2020 that represented an investment of over EUR 20 billion directly in industry.

PPPs 
“Nine out of ten of the collaborative projects [in Horizon 2020] include at least one private sector partner,” he said. “And there are two particular ways we work with industry: the so-called PPPs and the KETs.”

The Commissioner also sees the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), such as SusChem and the SusChem inspired programmes under SPIRE and BBI JU, as great successes that need to be taken forward incorporating learning from the experience in Horizon 2020.

He stated a need to simplify the array of different public-private instruments and make them more open both to new participants and new funders such as Member States and private foundations. He also saw the need for PPPs to be more flexible and able to adapt to both current and future needs.

SusChem has a long tradition of working closely with Member States through its network of National Technology Platforms and the recent PHEONIX initiative for CO2 valorisation includes three Members States working with the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) to develop and implement Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU/ #useCO2) technologies.

KETs
Commissioner Moedas sees KETs as another essential building blocks for innovation success. “With them, we have the power to create products that place us at the forefront of an advanced economy,” he said. “And they underpin our global leadership in so many of our industries. Their importance cannot be understated.”

He thanked the High-Level Strategy Group on Industrial Technologies, chaired by Jürgen Rüttgers, for their preliminary report ‘Re-finding Industry’ that advises the simplification and merger of some of the existing KETs and two new KET topics: artificial intelligence, and security and connectivity.

The group has been tasked to review the European strategy on KETs and to recommend how to best place them in the forthcoming mission-oriented research and innovation programme. The group's final report is expected to be published in April 2018.

The report states that Europe’s competitiveness lies in its capacity to create balanced, cohesive, well educated, healthy and protected societies. In this context, KETs must contribute to improving peoples’ lives, fighting poverty and correcting inequalities and, therefore, a new, broader definition for KETs is suggested based on four criteria: impact, relevance, key capacity, and enabling power.

In addition to the two new topics, four of the six KETs are recommended to be merged into two broader categories (materials and nanotechnology, photonics and micro and nano-electronics) and the KET ‘biotechnology’ topic should be broadened to ‘Life Sciences technologies’.

The report also investigates the potential links between KETs and mission-orientated research (see above) as advocated as a core element of FP9 and identifies 14 possible mission topics including ‘Industry renewal’, ‘Circular economy – shift to de-production and re-production’, ‘Carbon re-use - from climate killer to industry asset’, and ‘Bio manufacturing – bringing life to manufacturing’ all of potential interest to SusChem stakeholders.

SusChem view
The HLG report broadly corresponds with SusChem thinking on KETs.

SusChem outlined its position on KETs in a recent paper. The document describes what can be achieved by KETs and details the major technology developments and initiatives needed to:

• Create Advanced Materials for use in energy efficiency, renewable electricity production and energy storage, or smart functionalities responding to stimuli
• Develop Advanced Process Technologies, including Industrial Biotechnology, for more sustainable production including through utilisation of alternative carbon feedstock and alternative energy sources.
• Leverage Digital Technologies for use in advanced process control and materials modelling, to enable disruptive business models and to create new customer experiences.

The paper calls for on the European Commission to ensure strong support for KETs in the next Framework Funding Programme. You can read the full SusChem position paper here.