CareSTOR project will provide evidence (TRL8), at techno-economic perspectiveical and financial perspectives, and validate a business case based on a ground-breaking solution for ultra-cheap Capacitive Energy Storage (CES). The solution is enabled by an innovative intensified (hydrothermal) technology for the low-cost production of Advanced Nanoporous Carbons (Figure 1). Supercapacitor manufacturers (NSC & APC) will access to a UNIQUE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE through 30-40% decrease in technology price (KEY VALUE PROPOSITION-KVP) that will materialized into measurable benefits and sustainable business. The project ambitions to boost deployment of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) in Green Vehicles and usage of Renewable Energy Sources for Electricity (RES-E powered Grids) currently limited by cost barriers, with deep implications for H2020 challenges and European competitiveness and employment. CareSTOR consortia brings together the capacities and niche SUPERCAPACITOR market access to be the first EU-Selfsufficient value chain with unprecedented KVPs addressing a niche market of € 50 million by 2018. To tackle market opportunities, CareSTOR develops business-oriented Implementation including Scale-up (ENV), Prototype validation at operational level and automated production tasks for Supercapacitor cells (CareCAP). Key stakeholders are identified, pre_agreemets addressed including KPIs and deployed actions in place to assure agreements to force and accelerate market uptake for NCP & APC partners. Final 12 months devoted to Product validation in operational environment (CARESS stage) as a result assessing business success cases of the reliability and profitability of new ESS (4 Demo activities, Cost-Benefit assessment with scale-up data for each one of the Demo actions) to validate, at commercial and technical perspectives market access after project finalization.

One of the most important challenges of the 21st century is to meet the world's demand for sustainably produced biomass for both food and the growing bio-products sector. Increased use of fresh water for agriculture and loss of farmland due to salinity are related concerns. Salicornia europaea (S. europaea) is grown commercially in the EU for its fresh tips, which are edible as salad (marsh samphire). It is a halophyte plant and can grow on saline lands without requiring freshwater for irrigation. When grown as a vegetable only the fresh tips are used while the woody part of the plant is considered a residue. Today, European farmers are using part of the fibrous residue for soil amendment and drying the fibers to produce herbal salt. However, the amount of residue to food product is large (approximately 80%) and the salt content of the residue is a problem when used for soil amendment, as it returns the salt to the soil. There is a great wish from Salicornia farmers to increase the value of this fraction in line with the principles of circular economy. The woody residue part of Salicornia has been investigated as a source of pharma- and nutraceutical products due to its high content of phytochemicals e.g. hydroxycinnamic acids (HCA). To help increase Salicornia farming there is a wish to valorize these residues via biochemicals and bioenergy production. The project will also examine the combination of aquaculture and Salicornia farming creating synergies such as formulation and test of phyto-chemicals rich functional fish feed and formulation and test of protein and lipids rich fish feed. The outcomes of this study will enable Salicornia farmers and aquaponics farms to utilize all fractions of the produced biomass and produce value added HCAs, functional fish feed, and bioenergy. This will create new circular industries with co-production of food, pharma, and bioenergy from this new sustainable type of crop with very little or no production of waste streams.

The EMBEDED project aims to demonstrate alternative business models in 36 months by transforming waste from Europe traditional agrifood industries into biochar and construction boards, with a long-term carbon sink effect and short resilient value chains. The validation of the km.0 application of biochar on primary producer plantations and the regional market characterization will be conducted. Valorisation streams aim to combine marginal revenues from mainstream residues (olive pomace, olive stones, grape mark) with overlooked or underutilised ones (cork bark left on field, press-cake from fresh grass, grape stems), with five demonstration pilots planned in Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Czech Republic. Four of the pilots will have pyrolysis for the manufacture of biochar, using a modular method that fits pre- and post-conditioning phases into a single-maned portable unit. In two of the pilots, extractive methods aimed at bio-active chemicals will be evaluated to determine the added benefit of a cascade valorisation. Using a modular but stationary pilot, the Board production plant will capitalize on the cork outputs geographical. The consortium comprises 14 participants, comprising 5 SMEs and 1 LE that includes 2 technological developers and many influential figures in the agri-food industry of each designated region. In order to implement technology replications and technical transfer using the multi-actor strategy, the EMBEDED project will use 15% of the requested grant (750 k€) as financial support.