Different Projects, Same Goal
This page provides a comprehensive list of related EU projects that are funded under the same topic as F-CUBED – Development of solutions based on renewable sources that provide flexibility to the energy system – or that have similar or complimentary processes and objectives.
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Two processes for efficient nutrient recovery by algae
Biogas is a combustible gas that provides a sizeable and renewable form of energy. As such, anaerobic digestion (AD)-based biorefineries have a significant role to play. The EU-funded ALGALVANISE project stresses that it is important for the biogas industry to shift towards an AD biorefinery approach, and algae is an essential element in this shift. Algae can assimilate nutrients efficiently, while producing biomass rich in proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. But the problem is that algae is difficult to produce and harvest. With this in mind, ALGALVANISE will develop two processes for efficient nutrient recovery by algae: enzyme-assisted enhanced algal cultivation, and combinatorial bioflocculation using bacteria and biopolymers.
ID:
898560
Programme:
H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
Project coordinator:
CELIGNIS LIMITED - IRELAND
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Water2REturn proposes a full-scale demonstration process for integrated nutrients recovery from wastewater from the slaughterhouse industry using biochemical and physical technologies and a positive balance in energy footprint. The project will not only produce a nitrates and phosphate concentrate available for use as organic fertiliser in agriculture, but its novelty rests on the use of an innovative fermentative process designed for sludge valorisation which results in a hydrolysed sludge (with a multiplied Biomethane Potential) and biostimultants products, with low development costs and high added value in plant nutrition and agriculture.
This process is complemented by proven technologies such as biological aeration systems, membrane technologies, anaerobic processes for bio-methane production and algal technologies, all combined in a zero-waste-emission and an integrated monitoring control tool that will improve the quality of data on nutrient flows. The project will close the loop by demonstrating the benefits associated with nutrients recycling through the implementation of different business models for each final product. This will be done with a systemic and replicable approach that considers economic, governance and social acceptance aspects through the whole chain of water and targets essentially two market demands: 1) Demand for more efficient and sustainable production methods in the meat industry; and 2) Demand for new recycled products as a nutrient source for agriculture.
As a summary, Water2REturn project adopts a Circular Economy approach where nutrients present in wastewaters from the meat industry can be recycled and injected back into the agricultural system as new raw materials. The project foster synergies between the food and sustainable agriculture industries and propose innovative business models for the resulting products that will open new market opportunities for the European industries and SMEs in two key economic sectors.
ID:
730398
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.5.2.2. - Developing integrated approaches to address water-related challenges and the transition to sustainable management and use of water resources and services
Project coordinator:
BIOAZUL, SL - SPAIN
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Heat-to-Fuel will deliver the next generation of biofuel production technologies towards the de-carbonisation of the transportation sector. Heat-to-fuel will achieve competitive prices for biofuel technologies (<1€/l) while delivering higher fuel qualities and significantly reduced life-cycle GHG reductions. Heat-to-fuel will result in increased Energy production savings (>20%) and enhanced EU’s energy security by the use of local feedstocks which in turn ensured local jobs are preserved and increased. The benefit of combining technologies like in Heat-to-Fuel is, that the drawbacks of the single technologies are balanced. FT and APR are promising technologies for the efficient production of 2nd generation fuels. But currently the economic border conditions don't allow the implementation, similar to many other biofuel technologies. The radical innovation of combining an APR with a FT reactor is the basis to overcome this barrier. The large organic wastes (from HTL or other streams) can be conveniently treated with APR to produce H2. Both dry and wet organic wastes can be integrated, with mutual advantages, i.e. steam production for gasification, HTL and APR preheating; FT heat cooling without external utilities. Using the synergies between these technologies maximizes the total process efficiency. Heat-to-fuel aims will be met thanks to the diversification of the feedstock for biofuels production, reducing the supply costs and upgrading the efficiencies of promising and flexible conversion.
ID:
764675
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.3. - Alternative fuels and mobile energy sources
Project coordinator:
GUSSING ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES GMBH - AUSTRIA
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Current water treatment technologies are mainly aimed to improve the quality of water. High-value nutrients, like nitrate and phosphate ions, often remain present in waste streams. Electro-driven separation processes offer a sustainable way to recover these nutrients. Ion-selective polymer membranes are a strong candidate to achieve selectivity in such processes.
The aim of E-motion is to chemically modify porous electrodes with membranes to introduce selectivity in electro-driven separation processes. New, ultrathin ion-selective films will be designed, synthesized and characterized. The films will be made by successively adsorbing polycations and polyanions onto the electrodes. Selectivity will be introduced by the incorporation of ion-selective receptors. The adsorbed multilayer films will be studied in detail regarding their stability, selectivity and transport properties under varying experimental conditions of salinity, pH and applied electrical field, both under adsorption and desorption conditions.
The first main challenge is to optimize and to understand the film architecture in terms of 1) stability towards an electrical field, 2) ability to facilitate ion transport. Also the influence of ion charge and ion size on the transport dynamics will be addressed. The focus of E-motion is set on phosphate ions, which is rather complex due to their large size, pH-dependent speciation and the development of phosphate-selective materials. Theoretical modelling of the solubility equilibria and electrical double layers will be pursued to frame the details of the electrosorption of phosphate.
E-motion represents a major step forward in the selective recovery of nutrients from water in a cost-effective, chemical-free way at high removal efficiency. The proposed surface modification strategies and the increased understanding of ion transport and ionic interactions in membrane media offer also applications in the areas of batteries, fuel cells and solar fuel devices.
ID:
682444
Programme:
H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
Project coordinator:
WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY - NETHERLANDS
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The objective of the NextGenRoadFuels project is to apply advanced HTL technology and subsequent upgrading to a selected range of low value/cost, concentrated biogenic residues from urban activity, in order to obtain cost competitive, sustainable drop-in quality synthetic gasoline and diesel fuels. From a highly efficient and validated baseline HTL process chain designed for lignocellulosics, new innovative process steps will be designed and existing steps optimized to address the additional challenges encompassed by such feedstocks, exemplified by sewage sludge, food waste and construction wood waste (termed urban feedstocks), with the objective to reach similar performance as for lignocellulosics. The main optimization targets are - To establish fundamental pretreatment process and parameters to provide highest possible organic dry matter content in feedstock slurry and efficiently remove valuable inorganics that can have added value as organic fertilizers and/or soil improvers. - To establish HTL processing parameters giving highest possible carbon and energy yields to oil phase - To establish efficient upgrading schemes to bring the HTL intermediate bio-crude to drop-in gasoline and diesel fuels - To close material and energy streams to and from the individual process steps in order to obtain maximum internal utilization and minimal environmental impact - To establish MFSP scenarios demonstrating cost-competitiveness, socio-economic benefits and superior LCA and GHG reduction effects in a pan-European as well as global perspective. Specific targets of the NextGenRoadFuels project are to demonstrate the potential to convert more than 100 M tons urban feedstock per year into almost 500,000 barrels per day of drop-in diesel and gasoline fuels (more than 10 % of the current use in the EU), at a cost of approximately 50-60 Euro-cent per liter. This will generate 50,000 direct and 300,000 indirect jobs within the EU, and reduce GHG emissions by more than 70%.
ID:
818413
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.3. - Alternative fuels and mobile energy sources
Project coordinator:
AALBORG UNIVERSITET - DENMARK
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The increased share of renewable energy in the energy mix is causing the energy market to change. The shift towards decentralised and renewable energy production calls for revising the concept of virtual power plants (VPPs): cloud-based control centres that aggregate the capacities of heterogeneous distributed energy resources for the purposes of enhancing power generation and trading or selling power on the electricity market. VPPs need to be flexible to respond to day-ahead and intraday markets and react quickly when it comes to providing ancillary grid services. The EU-funded EdgeFLEX project will explore optimal architectures that will enable VPPs to offer both fast and slow dynamics control services. The proposed solutions could ultimately lead to greater market penetration as well as stable and secure supply of renewable energy sources.
ID:
883710
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.2. - Low-cost, low-carbon energy supply
Project coordinator:
ERICSSON GMBH - GERMANY
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NUTRI2CYCLE will use an integrated approach to enable the transition from the current (suboptimal) nutrient household in European agriculture to the next-generation of agronomic practices, characterized by an improved upcycling of nutrients and organic carbon. The project is deeply rooted in pevious national and European projects, in which the consortium members were actively involved. The underlying principle is that Nutrient Use Efficency can be significantly improved by integrating on-farm techniques and systems that allow better reconnection between 1) animal husbandry provided flows and 2) plant production requirements. At the same time this reconnection itself will serve a better C-return to soil and GHG-reduction by avoided emissions optionally combined with energy production for self-consumption on-farm.
NUTRI2CYCLE aims to (i) benchmark mass flows of nutrients, organic carbon and GHG-footprint, (ii) provide an assessment frame (toolbox) for evaluating potential impact of proposed innovations, (iii) actively support concepts, techniques and scenarios put forward in EIP-Operational Groups, (iv) optimize these (+ in-consortium developed) scenarios using the toolbox, (v) showcase the most promising developments via prototypes and demos. Finally, using the experience gained at a local/regional scale, NUTRI2CYCLE will elaborate strategic scenarios to identify the effect of these innovations at European scale.
NUTRI2CYCLE brings together the extensive expertise of leading experts in the field of nutrient cycling. This collaboration originates from the EIP-Focus Group on Nutrient Recycling, closely interacting with the EIP Operational Groups in the individual EU member states. Better nutrient stewardship engaging all actors across the value chain as envisaged in NUTRI2CYCLE will increase the C, N and P recycling rate significantly and will improve the overall sustainability and innovation capacity of European agricultural systems.
ID:
773682
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.2.1.1. - Increasing production efficiency and coping with climate change, while ensuring sustainability and resilience
Project coordinator:
UNIVERSITEIT GENT - BELGIUM
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The increasing penetration of solar photovoltaic and wind power requires modern power grids that can deliver electricity from producers to consumers reliably. However, increasing renewable energy sources (RESs) integration comes with limitations. One solution is to increase the share of so-called dispatchable RESs (those that have a natural storage capacity). The EU-funded POSYTYF project will group several RESs into a systemic object called Virtual Power Plant. It’s a way to aggregate RES sources to form a portfolio of dispatchable/non-dispatchable RESs able to optimally and internally redispatch resources. The project will bring together partners from four EU countries.
ID:
883553
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.2. - Low-cost, low-carbon energy supply
Project coordinator:
ECOLE CENTRALE DE NANTES - FRANCE
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Added value and Safe fertilisers from livestock manure.
More than 90% of the manure produced by livestock farms in the EU is used for land fertilisation. However, this process is inefficient. The EU-funded FERTIMANURE project intends to develop, test and estimate advanced nutrient management strategies to produce competitive fertilisers that contribute to good yield. Their goal is to recycle valuable nutrients from livestock manure and produce bio-based fertilisers. FERTIMANURE will be deployed in five of the EU’s biggest livestock production countries, namely Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Outcomes should help promote this circular economy model for the EU agriculture sector.
ID:
862849
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.2.4.1. - Fostering the bio-economy for bio-based industries
Project coordinator:
FUNDACIO UNIVERSITARIA BALMES - SPAIN
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Making pumped hydro storage economically viable in shallow seas. To decarbonise and slow the rate of global warming, we need to turn to renewable energy such as wind and solar. The current electricity grid, however, is still not able to handle the intermittent nature of these energy sources. Pumped hydropower energy storage can help to maintain and enhance grid flexibility and stability. The EU-funded ALPHEUS project will improve reversible pump/turbine (RPT) technology and adjacent civil structures needed to make pumped hydro storage economically viable in shallow seas and coastal environments with flat topography. It anticipates reaching round-trip RPT efficiency of 0.7 to 0.8 by combining the current state of the art and the expertise of project partners. ALPHEUS will also assess related social and environmental factors, such as fish life, local opinion, and land use.
ID:
883553
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.2. - Low-cost, low-carbon energy supply
Project coordinator:
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT - NETHERLANDS
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Aviation and maritime transport have a direct impact on global greenhouse gas emissions and air quality. One solution to mitigate this issue is sustainable fuels. The EU-funded BioSFerA project will develop a cost-effective technology that will gasify biogenic residues and wastes. The produced syngas will be fermented to produce bio-based triacylglycerides (microbial oil) which, in turn, will be hydrotreated, resulting in drop-in biofuels for aviation and maritime transport. The project will conduct both lab and pilot tests to optimise and validate the process and increase its overall performance with regard to the feedstock flexibility, the final product yield and production cost. It will also carry out an assessment of the related environmental, social, health and safety risks.
ID:
884208
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.3. - Alternative fuels and mobile energy sources
Project coordinator:
ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS - GREECE
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WATERAGRI is a H2020 Research & Innovation project that aims to re-introduce and enhance sustainable solutions for water retention and nutrient recycling to enable agricultural production that can sustain growing populations and cope with present and future climate change challenges. The project strives to generate a deeper, more detailed and integrated understanding of the hydrological processes shaping water resources in Europe. To achieve these ambitious aims, WATERAGRI further develops traditional drainage and irrigation solutions and re-introduces nature-based solutions such as integrated constructed wetlands, bio-inspired drainage systems and sustainable flood retention basins in the agricultural landscape, leading to better retention of both water and nutrients. WATERAGRI evaluates specific water and nutrient retention needs with the farming community, develops a set of affordable and easy-to-implement technologies, tests them in the field and deploys a sound business framework for their effective use by the farming community.
ID:
858375
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.2.1.1. - Increasing production efficiency and coping with climate change, while ensuring sustainability and resilience
Project coordinator:
LUNDS UNIVERSITET - SWEDEN
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Digestate – the material remaining after the anaerobic digestion of a biodegradable feedstock – is primarily used to improve the physical qualities of soil. However, constraints such as the lack of available cost-effective equipment currently prevent small plants from turning digestate into bio-fertiliser products. The EU-funded NOMAD project aims to overcome this obstacle by developing a novel, small-scale tech solution that will recover fibre and specific nutrients from the digestate. These nutrients can then be used to formulate high performance bio-fertiliser products. Given the solution’s mobility and modularity, it could serve multiple plants and result in shared costs that make it more viable than installing systems at individual plants.
ID:
863000
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.2.4.1. - Fostering the bio-economy for bio-based industries
Project coordinator:
ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS - GREECE
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Torero will demonstrate a cost-, resource-, and energy-efficient technology concept for producing bioethanol from a wood waste feedstock, fully integrated in a large-scale, industrially functional steel mill:
- - Wood waste is converted to biocoal by torrefaction - Biocoal replaces fossil powdered coal in a steel mill blast furnace
- - Carbon monoxide in blast furnace exhaust fumes is microbially fermented to bioethanol
- - Material and energy loops of the process are closed to a very large degree Every steel mill that implements this concept will be able to produce at least 80 million litres of bioethanol per year. This project creates a value chain for wood waste, which currently has no attractive applications. The technology concept is open ended: in the future, stakeholders may replicate the concept with other feedstocks and for producing other types of fuels.
The business case the Torero project will produce a competitive process for non-food feedstock bioethanol production. Compared with the current first generation production based cellulosic bio-ethanol solution the Torero innovation the OPEX of Torero is 1/3 lower with a same CAPEX. This will allow scale up of torrefaction technology when successfully demonstrated.
Most importantly, together with sister project Steelanol, Torero will be the only H2020 project to demonstrate a biofuel production process that is integrated in an existing, fully functional large-scale industrial facility. All other H2020 solutions will need to be newly built if they ever reach full industrial scale. Torero is add-on technology that can be used to upgrade existing facilities of the steel sector, an industry that is actively scouting for technological solutions to make its production processes more sustainable. The consortium consist of full value chain, industry ArcelorMittal and Van Gansewinkel, two expert research organisations Joanneum Research and Chalmers Technical University and torrefaction technology supplier Torr-Coal.
ID:
745810
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.3. - Alternative fuels and mobile energy sources
Project coordinator:
ARCELORMITTAL BELGIUM NV - Belgium
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Due to the rapid growth of population, municipal solid waste (MSW) has contributed significantly to the total amount of waste generated by our society. Today in Europe, each habitant generates, in average, 0.5 tonnes of MSW per year, increasing at an annual rate of 10%. Around 40-50% of it correspond to organic waste. This organic fraction mainly contains carbohydrates, proteins and lipids, which are all useful raw material that can be converted to valuable products. Its valorisation will help to solve environmental pollution but also contributes to the transition from a linear to a renewable circular economy. Digestion and composting have contributed to the reduction of the biodegradable fraction of MSW sent to landfill. The low economical value of compost and biogas is limiting the sustainable implementation of separate sourcing systems since increasing citizen environmental (waste) taxes is then need to tackle important logistic costs. New biobased products can help to improve waste treatment environmental and socio-economical sustainability. The aim of URBIOFIN project is to demonstrate the techno-economic and environmental viability of the conversion at semi-industrial scale (10 T/d) of the organic fraction of MSW (OFMSW) into: Chemical building blocks (bioethanol, volatile fatty acids, biogas), biopolymers (polyhydroyalkanoate and biocomposites) or additives (microalgae hydrolisated for biofertilisers). By using the biorefinery concept applied to MSW (urban biorefinery), URBIOFIN will exploit the OFMSW as feedstock to produce different valuable marketable products for different markets: agriculture, cosmetics. URBIOFIN will offer a new feasible and more sustainable scenario alternative to the current treatment of the OFMSW.
ID:
745785
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.2.6. - Bio-based Industries Joint Technology Initiative (BBI-JTI)
Project coordinator:
PERSEO BIOTECHNOLOGY S.L. - SPAIN
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End date:
Efficient micro co-generation engine powered by biomass.
Micro combined heat and power systems are an energy-efficient technology that simultaneously provides heat and electricity to households and businesses. The vast majority of these cogeneration plants use natural gas and fossil fuels as their primary source. The EU-funded SmartCHP project will design a novel small-scale cogeneration engine using biomass to produce heat and electricity. The main novelty is the use of fast pyrolysis bio-oil from different biomass types in a converted diesel engine, which has been chosen for its high electrical efficiency. Integrated with variable renewables such as wind and solar, the new system will generate power from biomass when the electricity provided by wind and sun is unavailable, thereby, securing the supply of renewables.
ID:
815259
Programme:
H2020-EU.3.3.2. - Low-cost, low-carbon energy supply
Project coordinator:
B.T.G. BIOMASS TECHNOLOGY GROUP BV - NETHERLANDS