Recognizing the significance of energy efficiency in industry and carbon emissions reduction, FLEXHYON is proposing a clever combination of alternative fully electrified heating systems (microwave, heat pumps, ultrasound) to tackle three specific industrial processes: ultrafast drying of compact material, drying of granular materials and distillation/extraction of ground material to address their urgent need to transition from fossil energy to renewable and low-carbon energy sources. Three optimized prototypes will be built and demonstrated in 3 industrial environments: ceramics, feed production, biomass. The quality and economic impact of the developments will be evaluated using LCA and LCC; environmental and technical performances, health protection, safety will be demonstrated and validated. Sound market strategies will be developed, giving clear indications on scalability, transferability and replicability across different industrial sectors, commercialization and deployment will be achieved through development and validation of set of business models for the 3 business cases. The FLEXHYON solutions will exhibit significantly higher energy efficiency in comparison to traditional fossil fuel-based heating technologies, therefore leading to a reduction in GHG emissions, maximizing primary energy savings, and enabling higher production flexibility (e.g. production on-demand, production on-site). Their scalability (upscaling, downscaling) will allow to better follow market demand and enable leaner production paradigms. To achieve the project goals, FLEXHYON combines 9 partners covering the whole technical value chain required for the development and validation of alternative fully electrified heating systems. The Consortium will also implement different dissemination and communication activities to raise awareness about the benefits of alternative heating systems in industry and exploitation opportunities from know-how generated and exploitable results developed.

The DREAM project aims to design, develop and demonstrate a radically improved architecture for ceramic industrial furnaces, characterised by optimised energy consumption, reduced emissions, and lower operating costs compared to currently available technological solutions. This will be obtained by substantially enhancing specific furnace parts (control system, refractories, emissions abatement system) and by adding new modules and sub-systems (CHP unit, heat pipes) to the current furnace architecture. DREAM Specific objectives will be: O1 – To design innovative hardware furnace components improving energy efficiency (biofuel-fed CHP unit, heat pipes, emission abatement system) O2 – To introduce substantial improvements on current hardware-software kiln parts (kiln control tool, refractory materials) O3 – To test the DREAM solutions in a variety of industrial settings (retrofitting and pilot kiln demonstrators) O4 – To pave the way for a full seizure of DREAM related market opportunities (dissemination, exploitation within the ceramic sector and market replication) DREAM will develop and demonstrate technologies enabling a significant advancement in the sustainability of ceramics processes, implementing 5 synergic lines of research and 3 industrial demonstrators, which will act as technological showcases for market deployment. Such approach will enable to advance, in the five lines of research, from TRL4 to TRL6. DREAM will strongly contribute to both the sustainability and competitiveness of the European ceramics and process industries. In particular, the DREAM technologies will earn an overall 20% OPEX and energy consumption reduction for industrial furnaces, with an average investment payback time for end users lower than 3 years. The DREAM coordinator and industrial partners are technology and market leaders in the ceramics equipment field, and this will streamline the translation of the DREAM research results into successful products and services.

The DESTINY project aims to realize a functional, green and energy saving, scalable and replicable solution, employing microwave energy for continuous material processing in energy intensive industries. The target is to develop and demonstrate a new concept of firing granular feedstock for materials transformation using full microwave heating as alternative and complement to the existing conventional production. The DESTINY system is conceived as cellular kilns in mobile modular plant, with significant advantages in terms of resource and energy efficiency, flexibility, replicability and scalability with reduced environmental footprint. The DESTINY concept will be proved in a demo site located in Spain, covering high energy demanding sectors of strategic interest as Ceramic (Pigments), Cement (Calcined clay) and Steel (Sinter, Iron Pellets/DRI, ZnO), to validate the critical parameters of the developed technology in relevant environment (TRL 6). It will be implemented with 2 feeding modules and 1 mobile microwave kiln module and product treatment. Influence of the DESTINY solutions in terms of stability, process efficiency and characteristics of raw materials, intermediate/sub/final products will be investigated to improve performance of the industrial processes addressed and guarantee the required quality of products. Numerical simulation tools will be used to drive the design and support the testing activities The industrialization and sustainability of DESTINY high temperature microwave technology will be assessed through the evaluation of relevant KPIs, with Life Cycle Methodologies. With the final aim of ensuring a large exploitation and market penetration for DESTINY, technology-based solutions business model, economic viability and replicability analysis will be conducted. For guaranteeing industrial transferability appropriate exploitation and dissemination activities have been defined during and even after the end of the project.

ICARUS will upcycle waste material resources of most selected process industries (covering minerals, cement, ceramic, non-ferrous metals, steel, water, pulp&paper and chemical ones) to achieve circular and sustainable process industries overcoming their final application in construction sector. This project will accelerate the process industry uptake and contributing towards the developed education and skills activities and outcomes in this area as well as linking all value chain from industrial players recyclers, public authorities, and standardisation actors. ICARUS tackles resources usage in the construction sector (housing and infrastructure), accounting for 50% of the total material extraction, and being responsible for more than 35% of waste streams in the EU. Furthermore, the circular economy in the sector is still at a very early stage, with an estimated level of circularity for the EU of 12.4% material use rate in the year 2021. ICARUS approach aims to give technological support to stakeholders of energy-intensive and construction industries as key players for the transition to a more green and digital processes industries supported by standardization aspects to promote values and a resilient, green and digital Single Market and business models including co-creation and co-design to successful market implementation. ICARUS will represent a breakthrough in the research and demonstration of new technologies to upgrade Secondary Raw Materials ensuring similar quality as primary raw materials, of three waste streams to improve circular economy principles in several intensive industries with its implementation in the construction sector, to improve circular economy principles in P4P process industries. These new technologies will be demonstrated throughout 3 demo cases: 1-Upcycling of Lithium Aluminosilicate Residue;2-Upcycling of SRMs from urban waste cellulose;3-Upcycling of steelmaking slags via Carbon Capture and Storage .

The overall objective of FISSAC project is to develop and demonstrate a new paradigm built on an innovative industrial symbiosis model towards a zero waste approach in the resource intensive industries of the construction value chain, tackling harmonized technological and non technological requirements, leading to material closed-loop processes and moving to a circular economy. A methodology and a software platform will be developed in order to implement the innovative industrial symbiosis model in a feasible scenario of industrial symbiosis synergies between industries (steel, aluminium, natural stone, chemical and demolition and construction sectors) and stakeholders in the extended construction value chain. It will guide how to overcome technical barriers and non technical barriers, as well as standardisation concerns to implement and replicate industrial symbiosis in a local/regional dimension. The ambition of the model will be to be replicated in other regions and other value chains symbiosis scenarios. The model will be applied based on the three sustainability pillars. FISSAC will demonstrate the applicability of the model as well as the effectiveness of the innovative processes, services and products at different levels: - Manufacturing processes: with demonstration of closed loop recycling processes to transform waste into valuable secondary raw materials, and manufacturing processes of the novel products at industrial scale - Product validation: with demonstration of the eco-design of eco-innovative construction products (new Eco-Cement and Green Concrete, innovative ceramic tiles and Rubber Wood Plastic Composites) in pre-industrial processes under a life cycle approach, and demonstration at real scale in different case studies of the application and the technical performance of the products - FISSAC model, with the demonstration of the software platform and replicability assessment of the model through living lab concept