Edition no. 9, 2016
Welcome to the  SPIRE Newsletter

Bringing you news, insights and success stories from within and about our  Public-Private Partnership  and the European Process Industry.


In this issue
PPPsinfoday 
This year's Information Day on contractual PPPs - Sustainable Process Industry, Factories of the Future, Energy-efficient Buildings, Green Vehicles - will take place on 14 October 2016   in Brussels. 

A specific session dedicated to the SPIRE PPP will take place in the afternoon of 14 October. It will be followed by a brokerage and networking event, supported by the SPIRE Association, during which interested stakeholders will have the opportunity to present their initial project ideas for the 2017 SPIRE calls and meet potential partners.
 
Should you be interested in presenting a project idea, please send an email to info@spire2030.eu by October 10,  indicating your name, the name of your company, the title of your project and the reference of the call topic addressed.

Projects
2016 SPIRE projects
SPIRE 1 - water management
  • INSPIREWater
  • SPOTVIEW
  • ReWaCEM
SPIRE 2 - Plant-wide monitoring and control of data-intensive processes
  • CoPro
  • MONSOON
  • FUDIPO
  • COCOP
SPIRE 3 - valorisation of bio-resources
  • Bio4Products
  • KARMA2020
  • REHAP
SPIRE 4 - industrial furnaces design
  • IMPROOF
  • VULKANO
  • DREAM 
SPIRE 5 - use of carbon dioxide
  • CarbonNext
SPIRE 6 - business models
  • INSPIRE 
Furthermore, A.SPIRE invites you to visit the websites of our SPIRE-related projects granted under the Competitive Low-Carbon Energy call: 
Buildings as Material Banks: Newsletter Premiere
 
The EU funded BAMB project  brings 16 parties throughout Europe together for one mission - enabling a systemic shift in the building sector by developing and integrating materials passports and reversible building design.
 
Indus3Es 
Large quantities of waste heat are continuously rejected from industries. Most of this waste energy, however, is of low-quality and it is not practical or economical to recover it with current technologies. Indus3Es project aims at developing an Absorption Heat Transformer (AHT) for revalorization of low temperature waste heat from industries, to transform it to high temperature source possible to be reused in the process.

One of the first activities has been an analysis of applicability of the developed technology in different potential industrial processes, considering SPIRE and non-SPIRE sectors. For this purpose, the different sectors have been analyzed in depth, focusing principally on temperature levels, capacities and possible heat sources and heat sinks, which can suit AHT requirements.  Results show that many industrial processes are suitable for integration of AHT technology. Sectors which are especially promising are the petrochemical, pulp&paper, and ceramics sector; followed by water and non-ferrous sectors, where it could be integrated in special applications. Cement and steel sectors show too high temperatures for AHT integration.

SECOND FOLLOW-UP MEETING OF THE EUROPEAN RESLAG PROJECT
Converting the slag, one of the main by-products generated in the steel manufacturing process, into a useful material that can also generate economic value: this is the major challenge taken on by the European RESLAG Project. Last September 7-8, representatives of all these entities attended the project's second follow-up meeting, which was held in Durango (Basque Country, Spain) at the installations of the IK4-Azterlan Technology Centre, one of the partners in RESLAG. 
During the two day sessions the effort and hard work by all of the members of the RESLAG consortium was demonstrated with the common goal of putting a stop to the slag environmental problem.
 
The European steel industry generates approximately 20 million tons of slag each year. About 25%  are not recycled and end up being landfilled or stored at the steel works. This activity creates  a major damage to the surrounding environment. RESLAG intends to find solutions to this problem, using innovative technologies. The objective is to find new technologies to reuse the slag, and then to seek markets interested in acquiring those technologies, which would thereby give real meaning to the concept of the "closed circle economy" within the steel industry.
 
The project, led by the Energy Cooperative Research Centre  (CIC ENERGIGUNE) located in Vitoria, Spain,  follows four main research lines:
  • Slag as feedstock to extract of high added value metals.
  • Slag as heat storage material for waste heat recovery in industrial processes..
  • Slag as thermal energy storage material for Concentrated Solar Power applications (CSP).
  • Slag used as feedstock to create new processes for the production of refractory materials and ceramics.
The RESLAG project aspires to meet the needs encountered in every stage of the process necessary to work towards achieving the goals mentioned above. To do so, it proposes a cross-cutting focus that includes everything from the most basic research on materials and design to the experimental demonstration of the innovative concepts proposed. To this end, in the final stage of the project, all of the technologies will be tested as industrial pilot projects supervised by top-level end users.

Bio4Products: Creating sustainable resources for process industry
The EU-funded research project Bio4Products aims to reduce the amount of fossil resources used in the manufacture of many essential products, creating truly sustainable value chains that will deliver significant environmental benefits.
Bio-resources such as straw, bark, forest residues and even sunflower husks could hold the key to a more environmentally-friendly European process industry, having the potential to replace fossil-based resources in many product groups, especially in the construction industry.
Bio4Products will demonstrate how these four bio-resources can be exploited, creating renewable and natural alternatives to fossil-based processing streams such as bitumen, phenols and creosote. The objective is to deliver four end products for which at least 30% of the original fossil material is substituted with sustainable resources, and which can demonstrate a 75% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

A state-of-the-art technique called fast pyrolysis will be employed which transforms biomass into a flexible bio-oil in a matter of seconds. This oil will then be separated into fractions which can be used for the production of roofing material, resins (phenolic and sand moulding), and engineered wood and natural fibre reinforced products. As well as an environmental impact assessment, the project will conduct economic and market analyses to develop a strong business case for its products.

Bio4Products will see a unique blend of organisations and expertise working together, led by BTG Biomass Technology Group from the Netherlands. Industrial partners from Belgium and Germany will demonstrate the viability of the new value chains, with support from expert partners in the United Kingdom and Belgium. The project, which began in September and will run for four years, is funded by the Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) programme, a contractual public-private partnership under the EU framework programme Horizon 2020.

You can follow developments via the @Bio4Products Twitter account. A dedicated project website will be live later this year.
GA
A.SPIRE General Assembly
The SPIRE association invites all the official representatives of its members to participate in our General Assembly in Brussels on 23 November 2016.  

The discussion will  be centred  around management priorities of the Association,  advancements of the SPIRE PPP and  expectations for 2017. 

Looking forward to welcoming you in November!
SPIREBBI
SPIRE - BBI synergies: ad hoc working group
On 21 September the kick-off meeting of the Joint Working Group SPIRE-BBI took place.  Suschem - European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry - initiated and  intensely supported the creation of this Joint Working Group (JWG) with members of SPIRE and BBI.  
The SPIRE - BBI JWG discussed and identified possible topics of common interest making a significant progress on the content level .   This joint narrative will include analysis of topics and projects, with the main objective to identify synergies and deepen discussions targeting and exploiting future complementary flagship initiatives.
REinEU
Re-Industrialisation of the European Union 2016
From 26 to 28 October 2016  the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, will welcome about 1.000 participants for  the International Conference REinEU2016.    
This  prestigious event in the field of  nanotechnologies, advanced materials, manufacturing and production technologies, biotechnology represents a unique opportunity for Slovakia as one of the new EU Member states to present its local perspective on the Horizon 2020 calls and present solutions tailored to these countries.
REinEU2016 includes matchmaking events, poster sessions, site visits around Bratislava, workshops and competitions
SPIRE will be present and join  high-level discussions on innovation and industrial policies and m eet representatives of leading research institutions and top innovators.

members
Welcome to our new  A.SPIRE  members
In July-September 2016, the following organisations joined A.SPIRE:  

We warmly welcome them and hope that their  contribution will make our PPP even stronger.  

Events
Upcoming events
  • cPPPs Infoday, 14 October 2016, Brussels. More info...
  • I-SUP2016 - 5th edition of this international conference I-SUP - Industry & Innovative Sustainable Production, 16 - 19 October 2016, Antwerp, Belgium. More info...
  • Re-Industrialisation of the European Union 2016, 26-28 October 2016, Bratislava, Slovakia. More info...
  • RECREATE Stakeholder Workshop, 26 October 2016, Brussels. More info...
  • 8th European Innovation Summit, 14-17 November 2016, Brussels. More info... 
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