PROMECA strategic objective is to substantially contribute to the increase of knowledge, skills, and competitiveness in the European research area and industry, through the design and deployment of a thorough plan of research and secondment of researchers between top-level EU academia and industrial partners, contributing to the main European Policies on innovation. In line with the MSCA-RISE general objectives, the project will: • Support career development and training of 44 researchers through international and inter-sectoral mobility among 3 academia and 3 industrial partners in 4 European countries; • Promote sharing of knowledge and ideas from research to the market (and vice versa) in a systematic way, through the participation of researchers to 3 focused research groups where scientific and industrial mix of competences are ensured, and the organization of 8 project meetings, where research findings will be assessed and validated among groups. • Carry out a thorough training of researchers in 6 dedicated workshops, each with a different focus, also adding key entrepreneurial skills and innovation management. As an ultimate R&D goal, PROMECA will develop, test, and validate an innovative membrane reactor integrating new structured catalysts and selective membranes to improve the overall performance, durability, cost effectiveness, and sustainability over different industrially interesting processes, with distributed hydrogen production as the main focus of the project. The project will bring substantial impacts in terms of skills and knowledge development of the researchers, as well as higher R&I output, contributing to convert more ideas into products. Organizations involved will strongly boost their capacity to carry out R&I activities in multidisciplinary and inter-sectorial collaborations. Finally, the project will enhance the innovation potential and competitiveness of the EU industry, reinforcing its world leadership as a true knowledge-driven industry

The MACBETH consortium provides a breakthrough technology for advanced downstream processing by combining catalytic synthesis with the corresponding separation units in a single highly efficient catalytic membrane reactor (CMR). This disruptive technology has the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of large volume industrial process by up to 45 %. Additionally, resource and energy efficiency will be increased by up to 70%. The revolutionary new reactor design will not only guarantee substantially smaller and safer production plants, but has also a tremendous competitive advantage since CAPEX is decreased by up to 50% and OPEX by up to 80%. The direct industrial applicabilty will be demonstrated by the long term operation of TRL 7 demo plants for the highly relevant and large scale processes: hydroformylation, hydrogen production, propane dehydrogenation. The confidence of the MACBETH consortium to reach its highly ambitious goals are underlined by two special extensions that go well beyond the ordinary scope of an EU project: 1) Transfer of CMR technology to biotechnology: Within MACBETH we will demonstrate that starting from building blocks of TRL 5 (not from a TRL 5 pilot plant), that fit the requirements of selective enzymatical cleavage of fatty acids with the combined support and system knowledge of the experienced CMR partners, a TRL 7 demo plant will be established and operated 2) Creation of the spin-off European “Lighthouse Catalytic Membrane Reactors” (LCMR) within MACBETH: A European competence center for CMR will be established already within the MACBETH project with an actual detailed business plan including partner commitment. These efforts will ultimately lead to the foundation of the “Lighthouse Catalytic Membrane Reactors” (LCMR) that will provide access to the combined knowledge of the MACBETH project .

Fuel cells have shown great promise for residential micro-Combined Heat and Power (mCHP) generation due to their high electrical efficiency and ability to run on conventional heating fuels. Technology leaders in this sector are nearing commercial deployment following extensive field trials but high capital costs remain a key challenge to the advancement of this sector and mass market introduction in Europe. The HEATSTACK project focuses on reducing the cost of the two most expensive components within the fuel cell system; the fuel cell stack and heat exchanger, which together represent the majority of total system CAPEX. Cost reductions of up to 60% for each component technology will be achieved by: - Advancing proven component technologies through the optimisation of design, materials and production processes for improved performance and quality; - Developing and applying novel tooling for laser welding and automated production lines to remove manual processing steps; - Improving cycle times and reducing time to market; - Demonstrating design flexibility and production scalability for mass manufacturing (10.000 units per annum); and - Developing core supply chain relationships to allow for competitive sourcing strategies. The HEATSTACK project represents a key step towards achieving commercial cost targets for fuel cell mCHP appliances, bringing together leading technology providers in the fuel cell mCHP supply chain with extensive industrial expertise to accelerate the development towards volume production of the fuel cell stacks and heat exchangers. Cost reductions will be achieved through advanced design, development and industrialisation of core manufacturing processes. Improvements to component performance with advanced materials will reduce system degradation and improve overall system efficiency and lifetime.

BIONICO will develop, build and demonstrate at a real biogas plant (TRL6) a novel reactor concept integrating H2 production and separation in a single vessel. The hydrogen production capacity will be of 100 kg/day. By using the novel intensified reactor, direct conversion of biogas to pure hydrogen is achieved in a single step, which results in an increase of the overall efficiency and strong decrease of volumes and auxiliary heat management units. The BIONICO process will demonstrate to achieve an overall efficiency up to 72% thanks to the process intensification. In particular, by integrating the separation of hydrogen in situ during the reforming reaction, the methane in the biogas will be converted to hydrogen at a much lower temperature compared with a conventional system, due to the shifting effect on the equilibrium conversion. The fluidization of the catalyst makes also possible to (i) overcome problems with temperature control (formation of hotspots or too low temperature), (ii) to operate with smaller particles while still maintaining very low pressure drops and (iii) to overcome any concentration polarization issue associated with more conventional fixed bed membrane reactors. Dedicated tests with different biogas composition will be carried out to show the flexibility of the process with respect to the feedstock type. Compared with any other membrane reactor project in the past, BIONICO will demonstrate the membrane reactor at a much larger scale, so that more than 100 membranes will be implemented in a single fluidized bed membrane reactor, making BIONICO’s In this way a more easy operation can be carried out so that a stable pure hydrogen production can be achieved. BIONICO project is based upon knowledge and experience directly gained in three granted projects: ReforCELL, FERRET and FluidCELL.