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.

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 .

ICEBERG will make significant advances in the uptake of the circular economy in the building industry through the development of innovative circular reverse logistics’ tools and high-value secondary raw materials production technologies to establish market confidence and acceptability of recycled End-of-Life building materials (EBM). ICEBERG aims to design, develop, demonstrate and validate advanced technologies for the production of high-purity secondary raw materials (>92%w) through 6 circular case studies (CCS) across Europe, covering circularity of wood, concrete, mixed aggregate, plasterboard, glass, polymeric insulating foams and inorganic superinsulation materials. ICEBERG will generate cross-cutting integrated smart solutions that encompass three innovative circular reverse logistics’ strategies: an upgraded BIM-aided-Smart Demolition tool; a novel digital EBM traceability platform; and Radio Frequency and QR based identification system. ICEBERG will develop novel technologies for the recovery of EBM, which include: hyperspectral imaging (HSI), machine-learning software and robotic manipulators to increase sorting efficiency of mixed aggregates; an integrated crushing, sorting and cleaning optimized system and fast pyrolysis and purification processes for wood fractions; thermal attrition mobile unit integrated with LIBS and carbonation for concrete; hydrocyclone combined with HSI sorting and acid purification to increase the purity of recycled plasterboard; a combined process of purification and solvolysis for polymeric insulating foams; advanced hydrothermal and supercritical based processing of glass and silica containing waste. Circular design solutions for greater circularity of EBM and production of innovative circular building products with high purity and recycled content (30% - 100%) will be also implemented. ICEBERG will generate in the mid-term an economic benefit of 1758 M€ and 6265 new jobs by 2030.

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.

During the last decades a trend towards the use of lightweight materials in constructions and infrastructures, as well as in the aerospace and automotive industry is observed. Lightweight components are easy to transport, handle and install and demand less operational energy reducing substantially their environmental footprint and the relative costs. Among other materials, concrete and ceramics are on the focus of interest due to their wide range of application and their durability. Based on end applications lightweight attributes must be coupled with enhanced properties and multifunctionalities, such as high mechanical strength, self-sensing, self-cleaning properties, which can be achieved with the aid of nanomaterials. The main objective of the LightCoce project is to cover the gap in the upscaling and testing of multifunctional lightweight concrete and ceramic materials by providing open access to SMEs or Industry to a single entry point ecosystem consisting of already developed Pilot Lines (including three clusters of existing pilot lines; a. Concrete group, b. Conventional Ceramics group, and c. Advanced Ceramics group), process and materials modelling, Characterization, Standardisation, Regulatory, Safety & Environmental Assessment, Data Management and Innovation Management that will be accessible to the interested stakeholders at fair conditions and cost. The ecosystem will support the upscaling activities of European SMEs and industry, covering a large range of end applications from constructions materials (bricks, ceramic tiles), infrastructures (ready mix concrete, prefabricated components), to high tech applications in automotive & aerospace industry. Thus, LightCoce ecosystem targets will be achieved through the collaboration of a well-balanced multidisciplinary consortium consists of 26 Industrial and RTO partners well recognized and world leading experts in their fields: 5 Large Enterprise 8 RTDs, 12 SMEs, and 1 Association spread across 9 countries.