BAMBOO aims at developing new technologies addressing energy and resource efficiency challenges in 4 intensive industries (steel, petrochemical, minerals and pulp and paper). BAMBOO will scale up promising technologies to be adapted, tested and validated under real production conditions focus on three main innovation pillars: waste heat recovery, electrical flexibility and waste streams valorisation. These technologies include industrial heat pumps, Organic Rankine Cycles, combustion monitoring and control devices, improved burners and hybrid processes using energy from different carriers (waste heat, steam and electricity) for upgrading solid biofuels. These activities will be supported by quantitative Life Cycle Assessments. In order to maximize their application and impact to plant level, flexibility measures will be implemented in each demo case towards energy neutrality and joined in a horizontal decision support system for flexibility management. This tool will analyse, digest and interchange information from both, the process parameters and the energy market, including the BAMBOO solutions. As a result, the operation of the plants will be improved in terms of energy and raw materials consumption, and will lay the foundation of new approaches in the energy market. BAMBOO will empower intensive industries to take better decisions to become more competitive in the use of natural resources in a broader context, in the spirit of facilitating the use of larger variability and quantity of RES. BAMBOO consortium comprises strong industrial participation; 6 large companies as final users and 3 SMEs as technology providers, working with experienced RTOs and supporting entities. The private investment associated to BAMBOO is over 7M€ along the execution of the project. Lastly, the transferability potential of BAMBOO is extremely relevant as targeted process and plant improvements offer very high potential applications in other intensive industries.

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 .

SUNFUSION endeavors to comprehensively address a novel process of microalgae and oleaginous yeasts conversion into shipping and aviation biofuels, by advancing state-of-the-art core technologies: (i) innovative PBR and open raceway ponds for microalgae and yeasts cultivation and optimization; (ii) a concentrated solar thermal (CST)-coupled continuous hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) reactor with solar energy covering the thermal needs of the process; (iii) a solar-aided thermal energy storage (TES) system which at later stages will be fully integrated to the overall process; (iv) hydrotreatment units to obtain the final, advanced sustainable biofuels; (v) recovery of gaseous and aqueous streams from HTL and synergistic cultivations of microalgae and yeasts that will be recycled to the microalgae cultivation leading to a zero emission and zero waste process. HTL is a thermochemical process used for the production of sustainable biofuels from the depolymerization and repolymerization of highly moist organic biomass, having the inherent advantage of avoiding the cost-intensive part of biomass drying. These points will introduce high-risk/high-return novelties that will play an impactful role in forwarding the process subcomponents to TRL 4. At least 7 L of biocrude from microalgae and 1 L from yeasts are planned to be produced and upgraded. A testing period of above 12 months will take place under on-sun conditions at temperatures exceeding 350oC, with the solar-to-biocrude energy efficiency target set to exceed 50%, which is an ambitious number that will allow the sustainable transformation of solar energy to energy carriers in the form of biofuels. Finally, an overall process assessment will take place to evaluate the technology in terms of technical, economic and environmental aspects. The visionary concept beyond SUNFUSION project envisages the integration of the main components of the process in a mobile platform that will be operational in off-grid places.

Large quantities of waste heat are continuously rejected from industries. Most of this waste energy, however, is of low-quality and is not practical or economical to recover it with current technologies. The Indus3Es project will develop an innovative Absorption Heat Transformer (AHT) for this purpose, focused on low temperature waste heat recovery (below 130ºC). The Indus3Es System will effectively recover and revalorize about 50% of the low-temperature waste heat, increasing quality of the waste source to the required temperature and reusing it again in the industrial process. The main objective is to develop an economically viable solution for industry, appropriate for new but also for existing plants and adaptable to various industrial processes. The developed system will be demonstrated in real environment in Tupras, a petrochemical industry in Turkey, enabling to analyze besides integration aspects, operational and business issues of Indus3Es System. Indus3Es System will be defined and optimized for different specificities in different sectors and industrial processes, for which up-scaling of the demonstrated technology and replication studies will be performed. Market potential evaluation and business analysis will be performed by industrial partners in order to guarantee a successful exploitation of the system in a short future. Indus3Es system will have a relevant impact making possible an energy efficiency increase and primary energy consumption of most energetic intensive industries in Europe. The embodied energy, the environmental footprint of the products and the manufacturing costs of energy intensive industries will be reduced, increasing the competitiveness of European products. Moreover, it will allow a sustainable economic activity for local “auxiliary” companies, usually SMEs, in high added value services related to the energy efficiency measures for industry.

The availability of compact and cost-efficient solutions for sustainable energy production is essential for renewables to become Europe's dominant primary energy source. EBIO will contribute to achieve EU’s ambitious objectives, by providing an innovative technical solution for the sustainable and socially acceptable conversion of low value crude bio liquids, specifically fast pyrolysis oil and black liquor, into energy dense transport fuels. The core of EBIO is the electrochemical upgrading of liquefied biomass to stable and energy dense bio oils and further refinery co-processing to premium transport fuels. The former step consists of successive depolymerisation, hydrogenation and decarboxylation, optimised by developing electrode materials, cell designs, separation processes and efficient integration into existing biorefinery infrastructure. An efficient, compact and safe process will be developed, operating at mild conditions, and targeting a carbon yield from crude bio liquid to transport fuel above 60%. The experimental development is supported by a broad sustainability analysis including economic feasibility, environmental footprint and impact on society and rural development. EBIO will validate the new technology at lab-scale (TRL4), using an integrated approach covering the entire process, using variable feedstock, minimising separation costs, and increasing resource and carbon efficiency. The lab scale process developed will be the prototype for a future fuel production system serving as buffer for fluctuating electricity availability. Wide implementation of EBIO technology will lead to a decrease of at least 190 MtCO2 / year, and the production of at least 61 Mt biofuels/year, considering only pyrolysis oils and black liquor feedstock. The EBIO consortium provides complementary world class expertise along the entire value chain and strong industrial commitment to maximise wide exploitation of the results through industrial implementation.