Developing continuous production systems through efficient (bio)catalytic processes - flow catalysis - supported by artificial intelligence is a key paradigm in advanced and sustainable manufacturing. FlowCat aims to address these challenges by fostering collaboration between University of Ljubljana (UL) and leading international research groups in the field of flow catalysis. By twinning with Politecnico di Milano, University of Bari Aldo Moro, University of Graz, KU Leuven, and Sustainable Momentum SL, UL seeks to facilitate knowledge exchange and research cooperation on harnessing bio-based raw materials for the continuous production of valuable compounds. FlowCat's objectives include knowledge and skillset transfer through workshops, summer schools, and on-site training focused on junior scientists. This aims to enhance UL's research excellence, project management, and administrative capabilities, ultimately increasing its competitive research funding and fostering stronger ties with industrial stakeholders. FlowCat is committed to the wide dissemination of project outcomes. Research findings, innovative methodologies, and best practices will be shared through scientific publications, international conferences, and dedicated project workshops. Open-access repositories will also be utilized to make research outputs readily accessible to the global scientific community. Furthermore, the project places significant emphasis on the exploitation of results. Intellectual property generated during the project will be managed strategically to ensure both academic and commercial benefit, aligning with the project's goal of contributing to advanced and sustainable manufacturing practices. FlowCat envisions a transformative impact on continuous chemo-enzymatic synthesis, with the potential to significantly reduce industrial pollution, material consumption, and energy usage. These ambitions are harmoniously aligned with Slovenia's Sustainable Smart Specialisation Strategy.

Rapid transition toward the use of renewable, energy-efficient and recyclable resource is needed in industrial biotechnology to achieve sustainable production of chemicals. However, enzyme based biocatalytic processes still mostly rely on fossil-sourced or carbon rich reactants. Efficient, scalable, selective and robust catalysts are needed to deploy H2 as a clean, circular and renewable reactant in industrial biotechnology. Our recent breakthrough in making robust and scalable hydrogenases, Nature's highly active catalyst for H2 oxidation and H2 production, opens the possibility to meet the industrial requirements in terms of i) compatibility with biocatalysis, ii) circular chemistry, and iii) economic and technical competitiveness over fossil-sourced reactants. The overarching aim of CirculH2 is to demonstrate the successful development of one or more highly robust and scalable hydrogenases for use of H2 that selectively drives biotransformations of bio-based materials to specialty and commodity chemicals in an industrial environment (TRL6). Modelling of the reaction processes and lifecycle assessment will deliver a full quantitative evaluation of the performances and applicability of the hydrogenase-biotransformation systems. This will provide convincing evidence for the adoption in industry. CirculH2 will deliver a scalable and robust H2-driven biotechnology compatible with the existing infrastructure that will advance European competitiveness in the sustainable and circular production of chemicals. It will minimize energy usage by having negligible resource losses and minimal downstream processing due to its highly selective hydrogenase catalysts. The CirculH2 technology aims at replacing the heavily used legacy methods of chemical production and enable decarbonization of industrial biotechnology.

The application of enzymes in industrial processes is increasingly important to achieve the EU’s sustainability goals and strengthen the bioeconomy, replacing oil-based chemistry. However, enzymes still find hurdles for their industrial application: low success rates of discovery and engineering; tedious and expensive methods to explore diversity; and limited activity/stability in the final application. RADICALZ assembles an interdisciplinary and intersectoral consortium to deliver faster, more versatile and more affordable tools for enzyme discovery and engineering, enabling the development of novel enzymes, new formulations and ingredients for more environment-friendly and healthier consumer products. This project will: i) develop new droplet microfluidic tools to find suitable enzymes for consumer products; ii) develop user-friendly software solutions based on machine learning (ML) for faster and more accurate enzyme engineering; iii) develop novel enzymes and bio-based, bio-catalytically synthesized ingredients for consumer products (glycosides, wash-enhancing enzymes, bio-based thickeners, natural antioxidants and fragrances); iv) develop bio-based, condition-responsive capsules for the protection and triggered release of enzymes and ingredients in the formulation of consumer products. RADICALZ will reduce the average time for enzyme discovery and evolution to <4 weeks, access 10 bio-based ingredients to replace oil-based chemistry, reducing the environmental impact –supported in depth in ≥3 cases– across 3 different types of consumer products. RADICALZ assembles 6 leading European companies and 6 pioneer academic teams expert in enzyme discovery and evolution, biocatalysis, chemical engineering, microbiology, soft-matter physics and microfluidics. The planned activities span 48 months and 7 work packages. The project is estimated at ca. 6 M€ (42% allocated to industrial partners and 64% of the total dedicated to creating highly-qualified jobs).

C-C bond forming reactions are at the heart of industrial organic synthesis, but remain largely unexplored due to long development timelines and the lack of broad biocatalytic reaction platforms. CARBAZYMES addresses these challenges by assembling an interdisciplinary and intersectoral consortium as a powerful synergistic tool to promote innovation in the field of biocatalytic C-C bond formation at large scale, and thus the global competitiveness of the European chemical and pharmaceutical industry. The proposed consortium, with 50% industrial participation, represents academia but also commercial interests in different stages of the research-to-market process. This top-down approach, together with a life-cycle innovation approach ensures an industrial drive to the project. Clearly aligned with the scope of topic BIOTEC3-2014, CARBAZYMES will pursue the biocatalytic synthesis (spanning TRLs 5-7) of 4 APIs and 3 bulk chemicals –corresponding to market needs detected by the industrial partners in the Consortium. This will be accomplished through an inter-disciplinary approach which includes: i) a broad platform of 4 types of unique C-C bond-forming enzymes, mostly lyases; ii) the capacity to rapidly evolve enzymes to operate under industrial conditions by means of novel enzyme panels and massive screening methods; iii) application of microreactor technology for bioprocess characterization; iv) demonstration actions comprising technical (up to 100L) and economic viability studies carried out by industrial partners. CARBAZYMES unmistakably aims to have social and economic impact by addressing markets worth bn €, developing enzyme evolution technologies beyond the state of the art and creating qualified jobs and technical-scale facilities at the industrial partners’ sites. CARBAZYMES will also achieve an environmental impact by enforcing that the developed processes replace more energy and resource intensive processes, thus leading to reduced environmental footprints.