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SUNBIOPATH - towards a better sunlight to biomass conversion efficiency in microalgae - is an integrated program of research aimed at improving biomass yields and valorisation of biomass for two Chlorophycean photosynthetic microalgae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Dunaliella salina. Biomass yields will be improved at the level of primary processes that occur in the chloroplasts (photochemistry and sunlight capture by the light harvesting complexes) and in the cell (biochemical pathways and signalling mechanisms that influence ATP synthesis). Optimal growth of the engineered microalgae will be determined in photobioreactors, and biomass yields will be tested using a scale up approach in photobioreactors of different sizes (up to 250 L), some of which being designed and built during SUNBIOPATH. Biomethane production will be evaluated. Compared to other biofuels, biomethane is attractive because the yield of biomass to fuel conversion is higher. Valorisation of biomass will also be achieved through the production of biologicals. Significant progress has been made in the development of chloroplast genetic engineering in microalgae such as Chlamydomonas, however the commercial exploitation of this technology still requires additional research. SUNBIOPATH will address the problem of maximising transgenic expression in the chloroplast and will develop a robust system for chloroplast metabolic engineering by developing methodologies such as inducible expression and trans-operon expression. A techno economic analysis will be made to evaluate the feasibility of using these algae for the purposes proposed (biologicals production in the chloroplast and/or biomethane production) taking into account their role in CO2 mitigation.
General Information: By using technology completely new to the adhesives industry it should be possible to develop systems which will demonstrate improved properties and performance, with the additional advantages of being safe in use and having much reduced impact on the environment. The approaches proposed are: 1. Elimination of organic solvent based adhesives, (especially chlorinated hydrocarbons); - via an emulsification process, new to the adhesives industry, solvent based adhesives will be dispersed in water without the use of emulsifiers/soaps or other protective/stabilising colloids usually reducing the performance of such systems. The organic solvent will be removed and reused in a closed style; - using a unique aqueous emulsion polymerisation technology it is possible to incorporate functional groups into/around the polymer particles capable of enhancing the adhesion properties and thus eliminating the use of rather toxic crosslinking agents, such as isocyanates, aziridines etc. 2. Alternative crosslinking mechanisms for 100 per cent systems(hot melt and liquid); - several novel alternative crosslinking mechanisms (oxazolines/oxazolidines, silanated polymers, metal-chelates) much safer than commonly used isocyanates and others, with all their known disavantages, will be introduced and optimised. Targeted areas of application are the automotive industry and its suppliers, footwear , foam padding and upholstery, and furniture industries, as well as the paper and packaging sector. Achievements: During the optimisation of the solvent based adhesives to be emulsified at Jowat it turned out that these new formulations appear to be very promising adhesives where no subsequent emulsification process is necessary in order to achieve environmental improvements and to fulfil the requirements of Jowat's targeted markets. These formulations are named Super High Solids (SHS) due to the fact that the solid content is about 80 per cent. These adhesives are hardly inflammable under application conditions for upholstery and mattresses manufacturing and therefore are targeted to substitute chlorinated hydrocarbon based adhesives. In addition, the extremely high solid content reduces the required space for packaging and transportation drastically plus helping the customer to easily fulfil regulations concerning maximum workplace concentrations with standard installations. A new manufacturing process for the production of water-borne adhesives has been developed. This technique involves the emulsification of specially formulated solvented adhesives in water, followed by solvent removal. The contact adhesives produced using this innovative approach possess excellent application characteristics and stability without the need for additives. Adhesives based on the peroxide cure of liquid rubbers have been produced in this project at Evode for metal-to-metal bonding in the automotive industry.
General information: BE95-1238 Development of New Technologies for Low Noise Freight Wagons. Amongst environmental issues that represent major constraints for European Railways, noise generated by freight traffic is one of the most important and difficult to solve. Freight traffic is operated as much at night as during the day, and noise levels imposed by legislation tend to be particularly severe for this type of traffic. Noise emitted by freight traffic is the result of interaction between freight wagons, belonging to a wide number of Companies all over Europe and neighbour countries, and national infrastructures. This makes solutions especially difficult to apply, and require a joint effort at European level. Although ground-based protection, such as noise barriers, or buildings improvement, will remain locally necessary, a reduction at the source is indeed more efficient, when achievable. Reducing freight traffic noise at its source requires combined action on both wagons and infrastructure. Therefore, two targeted actions are simultaneously proposed within Brite-EuRam: while 'Silent Freight' aims to solve the question of rolling stock emission, another targeted project called 'Silent Track' considers questions regarding track. The objectives of 'Silent Freight' are the following: develop a number of innovative technical solutions to be applied to existing freight rolling stock, and also to future wagons, allowing to reach, together with a combined action on track, a global reduction of noise emitted by the train/track system by about 10 dB(A). The cost of implementing these solutions, by retrofit on existing wagons, or from building stage for new ones, must remain reasonable, that is compatible with the economical requests imposed by a highly competitive context. Work will include development of investigation and simulation tools, design and validation of solutions, with a strong emphasis on the optimisation of the wheel design and on solutions integrated in the superstructure to provide shielding and reduce emission of the wagons. It will be concluded by a joint demonstration exercise where prototype solutions for wagons and track will be tested simultaneously, showing achievable noise reduction and allowing an extensive validation of new models. Guidelines will also been produced, in view of standardisation and of defining a policy for the implementation of low-noise design in Europe. The project will be carried out by a consortium coordinated by the European Rail Research Institute (ERRI), a body in charge of RTD for all European Railways, and including several manufacturers of wagons, wheels and other components, and several Research Centres. Prime Contractor: Stichting European Rail Research Institute; Utrecht; Nederland.
Since the publication of the ACARE goals, the commercial and political pressure to reduce CO2 has increased considerably. DREAM is the response of the aero-engine community to this pressure. The first major DREAM objective is to design, integrate and validate new engine concepts based on open rotor contra-rotating architectures to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions 7Prozent beyond the ACARE 2020 objectives. Open rotors are noisier than equivalent high bypass ratio turbofan engines, therefore it is necessary to provide solutions that will meet noise ICAO certification standards. The second major DREAM objective is a 3dB noise emission reduction per operation point for the engine alone compared to the Year 2000 engine reference. These breakthroughs will be achieved by designing and rig testing: Innovative engine concepts a geared and a direct drive contra-rotating open rotor (unducted propulsion system) Enabling architectures with novel active and passive engine systems to reduce vibrations These technologies will support the development of future open rotor engines but also more traditional ducted turbofan engines. DREAM will also develop specifications for alternative fuels for aero-engines and then characterise, assess and test several potential fuels. This will be followed by a demonstration that the selected fuels can be used in aero-engines. The DREAM technologies will then be integrated and the engine concepts together with alternative fuels usage assessed through an enhanced version of the TERA tool developed in VITAL and NEWAC. DREAM is led by Rolls-Royce and is made of 47 partners from 13 countries, providing the best expertise and capability from the EU aeronautics industry and Russia. DREAM will mature technologies that offer the potential to go beyond the ACARE objectives for SFC, achieving a TRL of 4-5. These technologies are candidates to be brought to a higher TRL level within the scope of the CLEAN SKY JTI. Prime Contractor: Rolls Royce PLC; London; United Kingdom.
The SustainComp project aims at the development of a series of completely new wood-based sustainable composite materials for use in a wide array of market sectors, ranging from the medical, transportation and packaging to the construction sector. A primary goal is to substitute fossil-based materials used in these sectors. The performance of today's biocomposite materials is not sufficient for a range of applications. The approach is to better utilize the inherent properties of cellulosic fibres and nanocellulose fibrils in such materials. The project encompasses the whole chain from production of modified fibres and nanocellulose through compounding and moulding to the final ecodesigned product for a number of product families. These new materials will integrate today s large enterprises on the raw material and end-use sides (e.g. pulp mills and packaging manufacturers) and small and medium sized enterprises on the composite processing side (e.g. compounders and composite manufacturers). It is envisioned that this will help the transformation of the traditional Forest Products Industry to more highly value added materials through the adaption of a set of advanced technologies such as the production of nanocellulose in larger scale, tailoring of fibres and nanocellulose, wet commingling, nanostructuring, layer by layer deposition and fibre spinning using nanocellulose fibrils. More specifically the objective is to demonstrate new products within the following product families: - Nano-reinforced foams (to replace styrofoams in the packaging and construction sector) - Moulded type of compounds, to introduce cellulose reinforced renewable biocomposites in the transportation and construction sectors - High throughput nanostructured membranes with designed selectivity for small-scale liquid applications in the medical field to large scale municipal applications This project conforms to the envisioned composite program in the Forest Technology Platform. Prime Contractor: Innventia AG; Stockholm; Schweden/Sverige.
The baking industry includes companies that make value added products including bread, buns, rolls, doughs, desserts, crusts, pastas, cookies, biscuits, crackers etc. that are either baked or frozen. The use of refrigeration technology has made a bakery's location independent of its customers, thereby broadening the geographic market potential and contributing to the growth of this sector. However, this development does have a cost. Bakeries are energy intensive, using large amounts of electricity and natural gas to operate the refrigeration system, compressed air system and ovens. These energy costs are rising and becoming a significant portion of the ingredient costs of baked goods. About 10Prozent of the total electrical and thermal energy consumption of all craft enterprises originates from the bakery sector. Accordingly there are many possibilities for energy reduction and therefore to permanently reduce the costs for the enterprises and thus to make a sustainable contribution to climate protection. Making changes in the energy use patterns of bakeries would be the fastest way to affect the energy profile of bread, because bakery is responsible for 70 and 80Prozent of the total energy consumption in conventional and organic bread production, respectively. Overall aim of the NanoBAK-Collaborative Project is the efficient energy management in the baking industry. Specific aim of this project is the development and demonstration of a novel marketable climatic chamber with an innovative, energy-saving nano-aerosol humidification system. Lab tests have shown that the energy consumption using ultrasonic humidification is significantly lower than for conventional humidification. The innovative ultrasonic humidification of the NanoBAK Project saves up to 50Prozent of energy compared to conventional humidifiers. Furthermore the quality of the bakery goods is of high value, so that the ultrasonic humidifier is profitable both energetically and qualitative.
The overall objective of the current project is to make a significant contribution to the dissemination of PV in order to improve the sustainability of the European energy supply, to reduce environmental hazards such as global warming and to strengthen the economical situation of the European PV industry. The main project objective is the demonstration of PV modules using solar cells which are substantially thinner than today s common practice. We will reduce the current solar cell thickness from typically 200-250 mym down to 100 mym. Assuming a projected kerf loss of 120 mym for 2010, this will enable more than 50Prozent additional wafers to be cut from each silicon ingot. Additionally, by using advanced solar cell device structures and module interconnection technology, we target to increase the average efficiency for these thin cells up to 19Prozent for mono-crystalline and 17.2Prozent for multi-crystalline silicon and to reach a module-to-cell efficiency ratio above 90Prozent. The processing and handling of wafers and cells will be adapted in order to maintain standard processing yields. Including scaling aspects, this corresponds to a module cost reduction of approximately 30Prozent until 2011 and 1.0 /Wp extrapolated until 2016. Furthermore Si demand can be reduced from 10 to 6 g/Wp providing a significant effect on the eco-impact of PV power generation. The partners of this project form an outstanding consortium to reach the project goals, including two leading European R&D institutes as well as five companies with recorded and published expertise in the field of thin solar cells. The project is structured in 5 work packages covering the process chain from wafer to module as well as integral eco-assessment and management tasks. The expected impact of the project is a PV energy cost reduction of approximately 30Prozent, a significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and an improved competitiveness of the European solar cell, module and equipment manufacturers.
Objective: The present proposal aims at the development of innovative multidisciplinary sets of tests and indicators for toxicological profiling of nanoparticles (NPs) as well as unravelling the correlation between the physicochemical characteristics of NPs and their toxic potential on various organs of the human body. For a comprehensive understanding of the complex data to be obtained on toxicology of NPs, based on in-vitro and ex-vivo studies, we will employ conventional toxicology combined with the methodologies of toxicogenomics, metabonomics, Knowledge Discovery from Data (KDD) and Data Mining (DM). This research program is focused towards understanding the relation of size and surface chemistry on the deposition, uptake, translocation, and toxicity of a few s elected industrially important NPs as well as novel synthesized NPs, whose size and surface chemistry will be methodically modified. Since it was shown that the penetration of NPs into the human body proceeds principally through inhalation or orally, whereas penetration through healthy skin is restricted, we have chosen lung and intestine as the primary interacting tissues/organs with NPs, while liver, kidney and the immunological system have been selected to be the secondary major sites of interaction, following the penetration of NPs into the blood circulation. The interaction of the NPs with these different target organs will be studied by making use of alternative methods to animal experimentation by employing in-vitro cell systems as well as ex-vivo studies based on precision-cut slices of lung, liver and kidney. The present proposal addresses the needs of the European society for assessing the risk of occupational and general population exposure to industrially manufactured NPs. It will generate new knowledge on potential health risk or the absence of it, providing objective arguments for recommendations and regulations.
Objective: We combine state-of-the-art techniques, methodologies, skills and instrumentation from several scientific arenas to create discipline-independent platforms to address key questions in nanotoxicology. Thus, we identify the routes via which nanoparticles enter and accumulate in living organisms, and connect this to representative cell-nanoparticle systems. Then using the most advanced methods of chemical, physical, biological and toxicological sciences we connect nanoparticle properties (in physiological conditions) to the mechanisms via which they interact with, and disrupt, cellular processes. We establish means and protocols via which every step of the program will be controlled, eliminating the factors that currently cause irreproducibilities. We emphasize novel unbiased assessments of intra- and inter-cellular processes after exposure to nanoparticles, enabling us to explore known, and unknown, processes. Key companies, large and small from several end-user groups, that are currently facing the challenge of applying nanotechnology in their products are built into the program in a substantial manner, and other key stake-holders are also incorporated into the overall consortium via the Advisory Board. This will ensure maximum uptake of the knowledge generated by NanoInteract, and enable development of Standards for nanoparticle risk assessment.
Objective: The fast-pacing development of nanosciences and nanotechnologies is due to their great potential in improving the quality of life and in creating novel knowledge-based sustainable processes. This unprecedented 'nano-pollution' may in fact pose risks to human (manufacturers and end-users) and animal health that we cannot evaluate at present because of the complete lack of appropriate instruments and bioassays. The DIPNA project aims at creating and validating these instruments and assays, and to propose to the EU and international communities new parameters for detection of nanopollution and evaluation of occupational nanotoxicology, in order to promote prevention and nanosafety in manufacturing and handling. In this novel, multidisciplinary, multination al research project it will be developed a precise knowledge on nano-immunotoxicity, i.e., the impact of nanoparticles and nanopollution in general on human defence cells. This knowledge will be validated in comparison with nano-genotoxicity and nano-carcinogenicity, i.e., studying in parallel the activity of nanoparticles in a standardised transformation assay in vitro, to predict the potential pathological risks of exposure to nanoparticles for human health. The project will be divided in 6 workpackages: 1. Production and physico-chemical characterisation of nanoparticles; 2. Evaluation of NP interaction with human defence cells: selection of representative cell systems; 3. Evaluation of one-to-one NP-cell interaction: definition of threshold and do se-dependent effects; 4. Evaluation of chronic and repeated exposure: eco-nanotoxicity; 5. Field validation and development platform; 6. Coordination, management, training, and public awareness. The scientific knowledge gained during this project will provide the ground for a development platform, aiming at standardising and field-validating prototypic assays and related instruments for biodetection of nanoparticle-associated health risks.
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