The CASCATBEL-project (CASCATBEL: CAScade deoxygenation process using tailored nanoCATalysts for the production of BiofuELs from lignocellullosic biomass) aims to design, optimize and scale-up a novel multi-step process for the production of second-generation liquid biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass in a cost-efficient way through the use of next-generation high surface area tailored nano-catalysts. Detailed description: Within the CASCATBEL-project a multi-step process for the production of second-generation biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass in a cost-efficient way will be developed through the use of tailored nano-structured catalysts. The proposed process is based on the cascade combination of three catalytic transformations: catalytic pyrolysis, intermediate deoxygenation and hydro-deoxygenation. The sequential coupling of catalytic steps will be an essential factor for achieving a progressive and controlled biomass deoxygenation, which is expected to lead to liquid biofuels with a chemical composition and properties similar to those of oil-derived fuels. According to this strategy, the best nano-catalytic system in each step will be selected to deal with the remarkable chemical complexity of lignocellulose pyrolysis products, as well as to optimize the bio-oil yield and properties. Since hydro-deoxygenation (HDO) is outlined in this scheme as the ultimate deoxygenation treatment, the overall hydrogen consumption should be strongly minimized, resulting in a significant reduction of the process costs. The use of nano-structured catalysts will be the key tool for obtaining in each chemical step of the cascade process, the optimum deoxygenation degree, as well as high efficiency, in terms both of matter and energy, minimizing at the same time the possible environmental impacts. The project will involve experiments at laboratory, bench and pilot plant scales, as well as a viability study of its possible commercial application. Thereby, the integrated process will be assessed according to technical, economic, social, safety, toxicological and environmental criteria. Focus IUE: IUE is involved in feedstock selection and characterization for the project. The main objective is to estimate current and future availability of lignocellulosic biomass in the EU. In addition IUE participates in an overall process assessment of the project. This is based on technical, economic, social, environmental and toxicological criteria that will be applied along the project to assess the different options being considered. These tasks will be critical for selecting the most convenient intermediate deoxygenation treatment, the optimum catalysts and the optimum operating conditions. Furthermore, a process design will be generated and a feasibility study will be conducted at commercial scale.
Europe is facing a large challenge in relation to the energy consumption of its housing stock. Buildings consume about 40% of total final energy requirements in the continent and in the context of all the end-use sectors, they are the largest (followed by transport with 33%). Although building new homes to the demanding energy efficiency regulations in Europe is essential, the benefits will accrue slowly as it will take several decades before such houses form a significant proportion of the stock. The major challenge is retrofitting existing, energy-inefficient homes, to meet 21st century standards within the constraints enforced by structures built in the 19th and 20th centuries. Key to achieving this goal is understanding the process on how best to select and integrate various technologies from the many available, to optimise performance for different building types, climates and socio-economic conditions - a truly holistic approach is therefore required. The HERB project has been established to develop and demonstrate new and innovative energy efficient technologies and solutions for retrofitting older buildings. These shall be installed and performance monitored in a number of typical residential buildings in EU countries.
The MARINA project is a major new European Commission Framework 7 project to develop reference methods for managing the risk of engineered nanoparticles and engineered nanomaterials (ENM). With very significant economic impact across industrial, consumer and medical products, nanotechnology is now one of the key industries within Europe and worldwide. Key to its long term growth and sustainability is establishing end-user confidence that the technologies developed arc safe. While there are standard procedures for product life cycle analysis, exposure, hazard, and risk assessment for traditional chemicals, it is not yet clear how these procedures need to be modified to address all the novel properties of nanomaterials. There is a need to develop specific reference methods for all the main steps in managing the potential risk of ENM. The aim of MARINA is to develop such methods. MARINA will address the four central themes in the risk management paradigm for ENM: Materials, Exposure, Hazard and Risk. The methods developed by MARINA will be (i) based on beyond-state-of-the-art understanding of the properties, interaction and fate of ENM in relation to human health and the quality of the environment and will either (ii) be newly developed or adapted from existing ones but ultimately, they will be compared/validated and harmonised/standardized as reference methods for managing.
Concept: NanoFATE has been conceived to fill knowledge and methodological gaps currently impeding sound assessment of environmental risks posed by engineered nano-particles (ENPs). Our vision is to assess environmental fate and risk of ENPs from high-volume products for which recycling is not an option; namely; fuel additive, personal care and antibacterial products. Two market ENPs from each product (CeO2, ZnO, Ag of varying size, surface and core chemistries) will be followed through their post-production life cycles i.e. from environmental entry as spent product, through waste treatment to their final fates and potential toxic effects. This will test the applicability of current fate and risk assessment methods and identify improvements required for a scientific assessment of ENPs at an early stage. Objectives: Such systematic study of the environmental fate and toxicity of selected ENPs will entail addressing 9 S&T objectives: 1: Design, tagging and manufacture of ENPs 2: Analysis of ENP interactions with abiotic and biotic entities 3: Generating predictive models for ENP exposure in waters and sludge-amended soils 4: Studying the fate and behaviour of ENPs through wastewater treatment 5: Determining acute and chronic ecotoxicity 6: Assessing effects of physico-chemical properties on ENP bioavailability 7: Defining mechanisms of uptake, internal trafficking, and toxicity 8: Developing spatial RA model(s) 9: Improving understanding of ENP risks Methodology: The work plan is designed to progress beyond the state-of-the-art through focused work packages. While some objectives are delivered in single WPs, good cross WP integration will secure the key objectives of delivering new methods for quantifying ENP risks. Impact: NanoFATE will provide robust tools, techniques and knowledge needed by stakeholders to understand and communicate risks associated with different ENPs, including their environmental interactions and toxicity.
Objective: The main driving idea of the project is the creation of conceptually new type of scaffolds able to be manipulated in situ by means of magnetic forces. This approach is expected to generate scaffolds with such characteristics as multiple use and possibly multipurpose delivery in order to repair large bone defects and ostheocondral lesions in the articular surface of the skeletal system. The major limitations of the scaffolds for bone and cartilage regeneration nowadays available in the market are related to the difficulties in controlling cell differentiation and angiogenesis processes and to obtain stable scaffold implantation in the pathological site. . . Several attempts have been performed over the last years in order to provide scaffolds for tissue engineering, but nowadays there is no way to grant that tissue regeneration take place in the pathological site. The provision in vivo of the scaffold with staminal cells or /and growth factors in order to drive the tissue differentiation process and parallel angiogenesis represents nowadays one of most challenging requests (Ref. Nanomedicine roadmap). The Consortium aims to elaborate, investigate and fabricate new kind of scaffolds magnetic scaffolds (MagS) - characterized by strongly enhanced control and efficiency of the tissue regeneration and angiogenic processes. The magnetic moment of the scaffolds enables them with a fascinating possibility of being continuously controlled and reloaded from external supervising centre with all needed scaffold materials and various active factors (AF). Such a magnetic scaffold can be imagined as a fixed station that offers a long-living assistance to the tissue engineering, providing thus a unique possibility to adjust the scaffold activity to the personal needs of the patient.
Objective: Nanotechnology is a fast growing industry producing a wide variety of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) and numerous potential applications. Consequently, the potential for exposure to humans and the environment is likely to increase. Human exposure to MNMs and environmental release of these materials can occur during all the life cycle stages of these materials. For each stage of the life cycle of an MNM, exposure scenarios will need to be developed that effectively describe how exposure to humans and the environment occur and what measures are required to control the exposure. The aim of the NANEX project is to develop a catalogue of generic and specific (ocupational, consumer and environmental release) exposure scenarios for MNMs taking account of the entire lifecycle of these materials. NANEX will collect and review available exposure information, focussing on three very relevant MNMs: - high aspect ratio nanomaterials - HARNs) (e.g. carbon nanotubes) - mass-produced nanomaterials (e.g. ZnO, TiO2, carbon black) - specialised nanomaterials that are currently only produced on a small scale (e.g Ag)). The exposure information will include both quantitative (measurement results) and qualitative contextual exposure information (risk management measures). We will also review the applicability of existing models for occupational and consumer exposure assessment and for environmental release from these scenarios. We will carry out a small number of specific case illustrations and carry out a gap analyses of the available knowledge and data. Finally, we project knowledge will be disseminated to relevant stakeholders, taking into account other relevant activities that are taking place in this field.
The goal of the proposed research project is to reconstruct a human cornea in vitro, for use both in corneal grafting and as an alternative to animal models for cosmeto-pharmacotoxicity testing. The project responds to the urgent need to develop new forms of corneal replacements as alternatives to the use of donor corneas, in view of the worldwide shortage of donors, the increasing risk of transmissible diseases, the widespread use of corrective surgery, which renders corneas unsuitable for grafting, and the severe limitations of currently available synthetic polymer-based artificial corneas (keratoprostheses). The originality of the proposal lies in the use of recombinant human extra cellular matrix proteins to build a engineered-engineered scaffold to support growth of the different cell types found in the cornea, cells to be derived from human adult stem cell pools. The development of a reconstructed human cornea will represent a real breakthrough, allowing diseased or damaged corneas to be replaced by tissue-engineered human corneal equivalents that resemble in all respects their natural counterparts. The proposal also responds to impending ED legislation banning the marketing of cosmetic products that have been tested on animals, using procedures such as the Raise rabbit eye irritation test. The development of tissue-engineered corneas will provide a non-animal alternative, which will therefore alleviate animal suffering. The project will lead to a transformation of industry to meet societal needs using innovative, knowledge-based approaches integrating Nan technology and biotechnology. The project brings together 14 participants with complementary expertise from 9 different countries, including basic scientists, ophthalmologists and industrialists (three Sees). Ethical and standardisation aspects will also be included. Prime Contractor: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Proteines - UMR5086; Paris; France.
More and more industrial sectors (e.g. automotive, wind energy, boatbuilding) are demanding lightweight and high-performance composite materials, which represent a strong driver to develop the carbon fibre (CF) industry. Today, almost 80% of CF available on the market are using PolyAcryloNitrile (PAN) as the starting raw material because of its superior properties compared to pitch based carbon fibres. However, CF produced from PAN are expensive which limit their application to premium industrial sectors looking for high-performance structural materials while accepting high material costs (e.g. aeronautics, military devices, and sport goods). The strategic objective of CARBOPREC is to develop low cost precursors from renewable materials widely available in Europe (lignin and cellulose) reinforced by carbon nanotube (CNT) to produce high performance CF for automotive and wind energy applications. To achieve this objective, two white fibre processes will be studied to produce continuous fibres: - Wet spinning approach for the cellulose dissolved in phosphoric acid (H3PO4); - Melt spinning by extrusion for the lignin. Moreover, the carbonization process as well as the different functionalisation steps will be deeply investigated to enhance significantly both, the carbonisation yield, and the added value brought by the developed carbon fibres in the final applications targeted. The CARBOPREC consortium led by ARKEMA gathers 14 partners coming from 6 different European countries and Russia. It covers the whole value chain needed to develop innovative carbon fibres from renewable materials.
EELICON is concerned with an innovative switchable light transmittance technology developed previously in projects co-funded by the EU Framework Programmes. The core of this development are mechanically flexible and light-weight electrochromic (EC) film devices based on a conductive polymer nanocomposite technology with a unique property profile far beyond the current state-of-the art, opening the possibility to retrofit existing windows with a electrically dimmable plastic film. According to life cycle assessment studies, considerable energy savings may result when such films are included in appliance doors, automotive sunroofs, and architectural glazing, and the comfort is significantly enhanced. The development has been driven to the pilot-line production stage, however, the decisive step from research to innovation could not yet be accomplished for a number of technical and economic reasons. To overcome this gap, EELICON will tackle existing drawbacks by removing equipment limitations, automating processes, and establishing a high-throughput prototype production for a cost-effective high performance EC film technology in Europe. The ambitious goal will be approached by joining efforts of European and overseas players to integrate nanotechnology, materials, and production know-how, i.e., specific expertise of European SMEs. Relevant IP is available for exploitation. The project comprises a pilot-line, a validation, and a prototyping phase (incl. business planning) and fully complies with the objectives of NMP Activity 4.4 - Integration and call NMP.2013.4.0-3 - From research to innovation: Previously obtained research results are used by industry, the European paradox is relieved, valley of death is overcome by following three pillars of development eventually resulting in creation of new businesses in Europe. The project is characterised by strong industrial/SME participation. 8 out of 13 partners are industrials, 6 of which being SMEs with leading roles.
Im EU-geförderten Verbund-Projekt Development of an integrated approach based on validated and standardized methods to support the implementation of the EC recommendation for a definition of nanomaterial (NanoDefine) mit 29 Partnern aus 11 Staaten werden Methoden zur verlässlichen Identifizierung, Charakterisierung und Quantifizierung von Nanomaterialien gemäß der EU-Empfehlung von 2011 erschlossen und validiert. Dabei wird die Frage beantwortet, ob ein vorliegendes Material als Nanomaterial eingestuft wird. Basierend auf Methodenevaluation und Ringversuchen werden Instrumente und standardisierte Arbeitsweisen zur Bestimmung der Partikelgrößen im Bereich von 1-100 nm mit unterschiedlichen Formen, Beschichtungen und der größtmöglichen chemischen Zusammensetzung in variablen Matrizen und Produkten entwickelt. Fallstudien zur breiten Anwendungsmöglichkeit, insbesondere in der Lebensmittel- und Kosmetiksektoren, werden durchgeführt. NanoDefine wirkt dabei mit Institutionen der internationalen Standardisierung wie CEN, ISO und OECD zusammen.
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