Sustainable Circular Economy: New opportunities for raw materials, chemicals and water?

On 15 March Cefic, ERRIN and the East & North Finland region are jointly organising a workshop on ‘The Sustainable Circular Economy – new opportunities for raw materials, chemicals and water?’ in Brussels.

Raw materials, chemicals and water are often regarded as traditional and mature industrial sectors but increased interest in the circular economy linked to Europe’s recently published Circular Economy Strategy has opened up new thinking and new business models based on novel innovative approaches.

What new opportunities are available for these industries and how can regions support innovation and new sectors of competitive industries?

How can regions enhance collaboration within and between the sectors?

How will smart specialisation strategies encourage collaboration between regions?

This workshop will seek to answer some of these questions and explore new opportunities in chemicals, water and raw materials with a focus on regional engagement and interregional collaboration.

More information
The all-day workshop will feature dedicated sessions on EU Policy, Chemicals and Resource Efficiency, Water, and Raw Materials.

The workshop will take place at the Greater Birmingham and West Midlands - Brussels Office on Avenue d'Auderghem in Brussels. More information and a programme for the day can be found here. You can register for the workshop here.

Alternative Energy use highlighted in Horizon 2020 Projects

The results from three Horizon 2020 projects on the use of alternative energy sources for industrial processes will be highlighted at a workshop in Brussels on 2 March 2016. The three projects address process intensification technologies utilising alternative forms of energy, such as microwave, laser or ultrasound, and are very relevant to resource and energy efficiency challenges in chemical processing.

This final industrial workshop is being organised by the InnoREX project and will see also the participation of projects MAPSYN and ALTEREGO.

InnoREX looked at the continuous reactive extrusion of lactide to polyactide (PLA) and online process monitoring of reactive extrusion processes. The project contributes to the fast growing demand for biobased polymers. Current catalysts needed to improve the polymerisation rate of lactones contain metals that pose a hazard to health and the environment.

InnoREX has developed a novel reactor concept using alternative energies for the continuous, highly precise, metal-free polymerisation of PLA in a continuous extrusion line. It has further replaced the metal-containing catalysts by newly developed organic catalysts, and investigated their activity enhancement by use of alternative energy sources laser, ultrasound and microwave. A pilot line including the energy sources and ensuring the polymerization and purification of the polymer from the residual monomer has been built. In addition simulation tools have been developed enabling fast upscaling of the process to industrial scale.

MAPSYN examined chemical reactions like selective hydrogenations and nitrogen fixation, upscaling of microreactors and flow reactors. The project aims to manufacture and scale microreactors and continuous flow reactors in which reactions are carried out assisted by ultrasound, microwaves or plasma energy. MAPSYN focusses on reducing costs and energy consumption of the production, preserving and enhancing high quality, reproducibility and sustainability.

Two different reactions were investigated:

• A novel hydrogenation process incorporating microwave heated microreactors and innovative catalysts has been evaluated
• Use of plasma reactors for nitrogen fixation processes including simulations of this process have been carried out

These reaction systems are important to the pharmaceutical and fertiliser industries. By the end of the project, MAPSYN will build two demonstrators: a plasma reactor for nitrogen fixation and a continuous flow microwave hydrogenation system.

ALTEREGO investigated pharmaceutical, green fuels and bulk chemicals synthesis and development of a generic methodology for upscaling these processes. The project aims for implementation of alternative energy technologies for intensified chemical manufacturing. A new hierarchical methodology to enable highly efficient chemical syntheses with alternative energy forms through reliable process data collection with advanced analytical tools, robust multiscale modelling and design and development of scalable equipment has been established.

The methodology is generic and was demonstrated for three alternative energy technologies: ultrasound, microwave, and non-thermal plasma. These were applied to different industrially relevant case studies in the application areas of advanced pharmaceutical synthesis and green fuels and bulk chemicals synthesis during the project.

More information
The workshop will take place at the Fraunhofer EU office in Brussels. Places at the workshop are limited, but if you are interested in attending, please contact the event organiser Anke Hartmann.

RSC Emerging Technolgies Competition 2016

The Emerging Technologies Competition is the Royal Society of Chemistry’s (RSC) annual innovation initiative that aims to turn promising ideas from the chemical sciences into commercial reality. Now in its fourth year, the 2016 competition brings cutting edge science to the real world for the benefit of society. The competition is currently open and applications can be made through the on-line application system. The entry deadline for applications is 14 March 2016.

The RSC Emerging Technologies Competition in 2016 aims to accelerate the commercialisation of innovative technologies in the following areas:

• Health & well-being
• Energy & environment
• Food & water
• Materials

The competition is free to enter and open to small companies, universities, and research institutions. Entered ideas can be at any stage of development and from anywhere in Europe.

Short-listed entrants will be invited to present their ideas to a panel of expert judges at the competition final, which takes place at the RSC’s Chemistry Means Business 2016. This high-profile two-day event brings together professionals from across the chemistry-using community and will take place on 15 and 16 June.

Prizes
The Competition prizes are designed to help take the ideas to the next level. There are three for each category, and benefits for short-listed entrants, too.

All 40 short-listed entrants will receive business training and a free exhibition stand at Chemistry Means Business 2016. This is a chance to showcase your technology to more than 300 delegates – including potential investors – and get insights from opinion leaders in industry.

The first-, second- and third-place winners in each competition category will receive tailored business support from one of the competition’s partner companies including access to networks, strategy review, potential commercial partnerships, idea evaluation with consumers and more. The winners also receive exposure for the winning technologies including support with media coverage, including a feature in the RSC’s Chemistry World magazine. And there are also cash prizes of up to £20,000 (First prize £20,000, second prize £3,000 and third prize £2,000).

The video below includes highlights of the 2015 Emerging Technologies competition including interviews with some of the winners and partner organisations.

Green and Sustainable Chemistry Conference in Berlin

The inaugural Green and Sustainable Chemistry Conference will take place in Berlin on 3 to 6 April. SusChem board member Prof Klaus Kümmerer, Director of the Institute for Sustainable and Environmental Chemistry at Leuphana University Lüneburg (pictured below) is the chair of the conference organising committee and will be giving an opening address and one of the keynote lectures on green and sustainable products. Fellow SusChem board member Dr Pierre Barthelemy, Executive Director of R&I at Cefic, will also contribute to the session on Context.

The conference will open with a high-level session as part of a comprehensive and wide-ranging programme that features keynote and invited speakers supplemented by more than 75 other presentations and an extensive poster session. Paul Anastas, Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University and often referred to as the ‘Father of Green Chemistry’ will give the opening keynote lecture.

As the world’s population edges towards nine billion, the strain on the planet’s resources is steadily increasing. In both the developed and developing world there is a growing demand for food, manufactured goods and improved access to clean water and fuel. Over the past 30 years it has become obvious that the products of human manufacture, even those produced to benefit society, can have negative effects on human health and the environment.

The field of Green and Sustainable Chemistry developed to help monitor, understand and limit the impact that chemicals have on our environment. Sustainable chemistry is all about developing new methods to reduce waste, boost energy efficiency and improve use of resources. In this way chemistry can both contribute to more sustainable industrial growth and to a greener economy and environment.

The Green and Sustainable Chemistry conference has a broad scope, addressing many diverse fields of Green and Sustainable Chemistry. The goal of the meeting is to bring together international researchers, from academia and industry, to communicate and share the latest developments across the broad and diverse fields that comprise Green and Sustainable Chemistry.

The conference session topics include:

• Mineral resources and recycling
• Non-fossil sources for old and new organic molecules
• Synthesis and solvents
• Catalysis and engineering
• Green and sustainable products
• Renewable energies
• Overarching approaches and new business models 
• Greenness and sustainability
• Ethics, legislation and economics 
• The Context

The conference will start on Sunday 3 April at 17:00 with a Welcome Reception and the full conference will commence on Monday at 9:00. You can download the full conference programme here and you can register for the conference here.

Chemistry challenge

Another unique feature of the conference will be the Green and Sustainable Chemistry Challenge. Entries for this competition consisted of projects that could be from any field of Green or Sustainable Chemistry but had to be applicable for use in developing countries.

At the conference the top five candidates will be invited to make presentations to a panel of judges. The winners will be selected from these five finalists and an award ceremony will held at the end of the conference. The winning project will receive €50 000; with a second prize of €25 000.

Integrated Industrial Water Management: Solutions for Practice

The SusChem-inspired FP7 project ‘Economically and Ecologically Efficient Water Management in the European Chemical Industry’ (E4Water) is holding its final conference on ‘Integrated Industrial Water Management: Solutions for Practice’ on 19 and 20 April 2016 at the offices of the Representation of the State of Hessen to the EU in Brussels.

Water is a key pan-European concern for industry. Despite the vast amount of water on the planet scarce fresh water resources and water stress of aquatic ecosystems are current critical issues in Europe and the world and are the result of a myriad of interacting environmental, political, economic, and social forces. Europe is confronted with urgent challenges related to water: adapting to climate change, including mitigation of floods and droughts risks, achieving good quality of surface water, ensuring adequate availability of water to deliver multiple benefits to nature and to the economy.

The chemical industry is both a major water user and a key solution provider to the sector. It offers significant potential for increasing eco-efficiency in industrial water management in its own sector and also in other industrial sectors.

The conference “Integrated Industrial Water Management: Solutions for Practice” presents new integrated approaches, methodologies and process technologies for a more efficient and sustainable management of water in the chemical industry with cross-fertilization potential to other industrial sectors. The conference programme can be downloaded here.

The event will focus on the results obtained during the E4Water project in terms of best practise for water management and how this can provide challenges and opportunities for the chemical sector from the six case studies that form the core of the E4Water effort. Presentations will include:

• Innovative materials, process technologies, tools and methodologies for an integrated water management.
• Open innovation approaches for testing innovative developments with respect to other industries.
• Industrial case studies, representing critical challenges for the chemical industry and other process industries.
• Implementation of improved tools for process efficiency optimisation, linking water processes with production processes- and eco-efficiency assessment.

The above examples were all developed and demonstrated in the E4Water project. In addition to multiple exciting presentations related to E4Water developments, keynote presentations will give insights on industry needs and water related strategies and on European Commission activities and strategies. A get together and poster party will give participants the opportunity to discuss E4Water results and to present their own work related to integrated industrial water management. You can download the Call for Posters template document here.

Registration for the conference is open now and is free of charge.

What is E4Water?
With the chemical industry providing the highest potential to demonstrate increased eco-efficiency in industrial water management, the FP7 project ‘Economically and Ecologically Efficient Water Management in the European Chemical Industry’ (E4Water) addresses a range of crucial process needs to overcome bottlenecks and barriers to a fully integrated and energy efficient water management system.

The project’s main objective is to develop and test integrated approaches, methodologies and process technologies. There are six industrial case study sites at the core of E4Water that are expected to achieve a reduction of 20-40% in water use, 30-70% in waste water production, 15-40% in energy use and up to 60% in direct economic benefits. In addition to the chemical industry, the project is actively seeking opportunities for cross-fertilisation with other industrial sectors.

The project consortium brings together large chemical companies, leading European water sector companies and innovative research and technology development centres and universities. The partners are also involved in the Water supply and sanitation Platform (WssTP) and SusChem, the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry, and actively collaborate with water authorities in different European countries.

#useCO2 News

Carbon dioxide Capture utilisation (CCU) and carbon storage are certainly hot topics in sustainable chemistry and rarely out of the energy news. Now the European Commission’s Strategic Energy Technologies Information System (SETIS) has devoted a whole issue of its online magazine to the topic including contributions from SusChem and SPIRE.

The January 2016 issue of the SETIS Magazine includes some 20 articles highlighting the many projects and activities on carbon capture utilisation and storage in Europe. Amongst the various contributions from industry and academic experts are two from SusChem and the SPIRE PPP:

• ‘Chemical valorisation of CO2 for Europe’ by Sophie Wilmet of Cefic R&I
• ‘Carbon dioxide – turning an enemy into a valuable friend!’ by SPIRE executive director Loredana Ghinea

SusChem closely follows progress in CO2 utilisation and regularly tweets on developments using the #useCO2 hashtag.

European #useCO2 Events
A couple of important #useCO2 conferences are taking place in Europe during 2016.

Carbon Dioxide Catalysis - Zing Conference on 19 22 April 2016 in the Algarve, Portugal
This conference will showcase the latest advances in the catalytic conversion of CO2. The primary aim of the conference is to gather representatives from the academic and industrial communities to exchange information and ideas, and to find mutual ground for developing new and improved catalytic methods.

International Conference on Carbon Dioxide Utilization (ICCDU XIV) on 11-15 September 2016 in Sheffield UK
The ICCDU is the premier scientific conference on CO2 utilisation research and  provides a multi-disciplinary forum on recent innovations in fundamental and applied aspects of carbon dioxide utilization. There are three broad themes and abstracts are welcome in the following areas by 29 February:

• CO2 insertion any processes in-which CO2 is inserted i.e. polymerisation, mineralisation.
• CO2 splitting any process in which CO2 is split, i.e. electrochemistry, plasma, photochemistry.
• Enabling technologies i.e. carbon capture, LCA, CO2 utilisation in the circular economy, hydrogen production for CO2 utilisation, energy integration, whole systems approaches.

SCOT project
The Smart CO2 Transformation (SCOT) project has launched its Vision for Smart CO2 Transformation in Europe, a long-term Vision for CO2 utilisation that puts forward why Europe should make CCU a priority and accelerate the development of #useCO2 technologies.

The report suggests three core reasons why Europe should accelerate the market development
of its CO2 utilisation sector:

• CO2 utilisation can be one of the major growth areas in Europe’s future low-carbon circular economy
• CO2  utilisation can help to facilitate Europe’s energy transition
• CO2 utilisation can contribute to achieving Europe’s aims for decreasing carbon emissions

The project also has two further events:

How to deal with oil price ups and downs: SCOT & CO2Chem Workshop on 23 March 2016 in Frankfurt, Germany
The significant work on CCU in recent years is being jeopardised by the current depressed fossil fuel price. For successful market implementation, it is crucial for CCU technologies to compete economically, thus the low oil prices are a major barrier for the development of CCU technologies. The goal of the workshop is to describe the current situation and to discuss how CCU can develop constantly and safely within these uncertain framework conditions.
http://www.scotproject.org/

CO2 Utilisation as a Strong Catalyst for the European Industrial Renaissance on 29 June 2016 in Brussels
The final conference of the SCOT FP7 project will present the Research and Development and the regulatory needs that SCOT has identified as levers for the development of CO2 Utilisation. The day will be split in two parts; in the morning, the CO2 recycling community will gather key industrial and academic players in order to discuss the Strategic European Research and Innovation Agenda (SERIA) and the next steps necessary to implement the Joint Action Plan.  In the afternoon, discussion will move to European and regional policy makers and what can be done from a policy perspective to allow the industrial deployment of these technologies.

About CO2Chem
The information provided in this blog is supplied by the CO2Chem network that brings together academics, industrialists and policy makers over a wide range of disciplines to consider the utilisation of carbon dioxide as a single carbon chemical feedstock for the production of value added products. Network activities are geared towards the founding of strong cross-disciplinary research clusters that will lead research in this increasingly important area.
A calendar of forthcoming events covering carbon dioxide utilisation (#useCO2) topics can be found on the CO2Chem Website.

Save the date: Industrial Technologies - Creating a Smart Europe June 22-24

The Netherlands Presidency of the European Union will be hosting the European Conference Industrial Technologies 2016 to be held from 22 to 24 June 2016 at the RAI Conference Centre in Amsterdam.

Industrial Technologies 2016 will be the largest networking conference in the field of new production technologies, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology and digital technologies in Europe with more than 1 250 high level delegates expected.

The conference's advisory board includes a number of SusChem stakeholders - not least SusChem's Chairman of the Board Dr Klaus Sommer.

"Innovation is the basis of Europe’s competitiveness. In particular piloting and demonstration facilities are important to bridge the gap between research and competitive business," says Dr Sommer. "New technologies play a key role in this effort, signified by e.g. the focus on Key Enabling Technologies."

"Europe would benefit from a stronger sense of community between innovation and technology players. The conference is a great opportunity to network but also to emphasize the importance together with the European Commission," concludes Dr. Sommer.

Creating a Smart Europe
The three day conference will bring together personalities involved in research, industry, education, finance and policy activities from  manufacturing and process industry and technology domains from all over Europe to identify priorities that are crucial to strengthen the European industrial innovation ecosystem and deliver ‘A Smart Europe’.

Reasons to attend include:

• Inspiring keynotes and eye-opening site visits
• Interaction to identify priorities for the policy agenda
• Networking with European players in research, industry, finance and policy

Registration is now open and 'early bird' fees will apply until 15 April.

A provisional schedule for the conference is available. To keep up to date with developments for the conference visit the conference website and subscribe to the conference newsletter. You can also follow the conference on Twitter via @IndTech16.