iCAREPLAST: Consortium

10 Partners from 5 countries – interdisciplinary and across sector

Leading experts teaming up for an excellent consortium

 

Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

The Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) is the largest public multidisciplinary research organisation in Spain. CSIC has 123 institutes or centres and collaborates with national and international universities, public RTD organizations, SMEs, companies and other institutions of a scientific/technological nature. It has a staff of more than 10,900 employees, among these about 3,500 are permanent researchers and more than 4,000 are pre- and post-doctoral researchers. As to the number of projects, CSIC is listed the 4th organisation in Europe within the research organizations, with a total FP7 contribution of over 264 million euros. In H2020 (2014-2018) CSIC has obtained as of today 387 projects with a total EU financial contribution of 164 million euros, which makes CSIC to be listed the 3rd participant within the European research organizations by number of projects.
The Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ) is a joint research centre founded in 1990 by the CSIC and the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). The CSIC-ITQ is a worldwide recognised institute that integrates catalysis and materials science through a multidisciplinary approach. CSIC-ITQ has a multidisciplinary research group with large experience in development and characterisation of electro-catalytic materials and ionic membranes, as well as in the design, optimisation and own fabrication of fully-automated laboratory reactor prototypes, proved by the number of published publications, patents and the ongoing projects.


Role in project:

•    Catalytic units: catalyst design, characterisation and testing at lab/bench scale.
•    Process simulations.
•    Design of specific process units (reactors and separation).

 

Universitat Politècnica de València

Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) is the single Spanish Technical University that features in all the world University rankings. It is among the Spanish Universities with the highest revenue from competitive research (R&D contracts, consulting and service delivery, spin-off) and a national leader in patent exploitation. Constituted in 1968, it comprises nearly 40.000 students, 15 schools, and 11 university research centres of excellence.
The Predictive Control and Optimization Group (CPOH) belongs to the “Instituto Universitario de Automática e Informática Industrial” better known as the ai2 Institute. The ai2 Institute is a research organization founded in 2000, part of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). The ai2 Institute is formed by a group of leading multidisciplinary research groups in five subject areas: Robotics, Process Control and Optimization, Industrial Informatics, Computer Vision and Computer Graphics and Multimedia. The ai2 institute offers consulting, R&D and transfer technology services to industry and academia. The CPOH-UPV research and transfer technology background in the last years have focused in two topics:  Multivariable Predictive Control; Multiobjective Optimization of processes and systems. CPOH-UPV has a research group conformed by engineers from different disciplines (industrial, computer science, automatic control) with large experience in the design of multivariable controllers and optimization algorithms for process control.


Role in project:
•    Design and implementation of advanced control system level.
•    Design and implementation of real time optimization level.
•    Integration of LCA, LCE, LCC issues with the control system.

 

Technische Universität Braunschweig

The field of action of the Chair of Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering (approx. 30 researchers lead by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Herrmann in Braunschweig, Germany) within the Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF) at Technische Universität Braunschweig (TU BS) is the life cycle oriented optimization of products and processes through the development and industrial application of adequate concepts, methods and tools towards a sustainable development. Especially the topic of ´Sustainability in Manufacturing´ using data mining and knowledge discovery methods for predictive maintenance is a major focus of research.
From an international perspective the research group is one of very few research teams worldwide that explicitly considers the whole life cycle. International collaboration is a key issue, e.g. the group has established the joint German-Australian research group on “Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering” with Prof. Sami Kara at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.


Role in project:
•    Development of a methodology for the live assessment of lifecycle environmental impacts of secondary chemical commodities from the recycling of plastic containing products.
•    Dynamic calculations of the life cycle environmental impacts and costs per functional  unit of the manufactured product.

 

iPoint-Systems gmbh

iPoint-systems was founded in Reutlingen, Germany, in 2001. Nowadays iPoint is a leading provider of software and consulting for environmental and social product compliance, and sustainability. The headquarter is situated in Reutlingen. The company has got 13 offices on different continents of which 7 are in Europe and the others are located in Manchester, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Tokio, Shanghai and Suwon. iPoint-Austria (located in Vienna) is the Competence center within iPoint regarding all Sustainability topics like Life Cycle Assessment and manages all research topics as well.
iPoint has more than 170 employees, whose profession ranges from Software Developer, Support Specialist, Global Marketing Manager, IT- Specialists and - Project Manager, Sales Specialist etc. Tens of thousands of companies from all industry sectors rely on iPoint’s solutions for managing, tracking, analyzing, and reporting data across the whole value creation network. iPoint’s software and consulting services support customers around the globe in meeting and staying one step ahead of regulations and requirements such as REACH, RoHS, WEEE, ELV, EHS, Conflict Minerals- and Modern Slavery-related laws, as well as other trending developments and challenges governing product, supply chain, and enterprise stewardship. The offered integrated solutions range from exchange platforms for issues concerning Sustainability and Compliance, Environment Health & Sustainability software, Apps to identify toxicants in products and cloud-based Life Cycle Assessment tools.


Role in project:

•    Providing knowledge with support of Software tools for Life Cycle Analysis, hand in hand with Technische Universität Braunschweig.
•    Developing interfaces and tools to machine monitoring- and Energy management systems to enable Live LCA based on real data.

 

National Laboratory of Energy and Geology (LNEG)

The National Laboratory of Energy and Geology (LNEG) is a State Laboratory of the Ministry of Economy that makes R&D oriented to the needs of society and enterprises, investing in a sustainable research, along with the international best practices. It was founded in 2007 with the competences of R&D activities in the fields of Energy and Geology that belonged to INETI (National Institute of Engineering, Technology and Innovation).
LNEG’s mission is to promote technological innovation science and technology oriented for economic development contributing to increase competitiveness of economic agents in the context of sustainable progress of the Portuguese economy. In accordance with the Portuguese Government’s strategies and policies for economic and social development, LNEG takes up the role of an interface between results generated by R&D programs and their technological transfer and integration into the energy and geology productive sector. LNEG´s participation in a broad range of international projects confers it the role of a key partner for internationalization, as well as of a source of specialized information over a number of R&D fields. LNEG has 262 employees, among these 106 are permanent researchers distributed across 5 campuses dispersed throughout Portugal mainland.  It has a long experience in both participating and managing RTD projects. Currently, LNEG participates in more than 100 international and national projects.


Role in project:

•    Wastes characterization.
•    Lab scale pyrolysis tests of different feedstocks, such as PE, PP, PET, PS and mixtures of them.
•    Products upgrading.

 

BioBTX B.V.

BioBTX was started in 2012 by KNN and Syncom. The objectives were to make chemicals from biomass. Based on market studies the choice was made to focus on aromatics, especially benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX), mainly due to the high demand for such base chemicals and the absence of economically feasible alternatives for the fossil routes to BTX. In Sep 2017 Pieter Imhof joined as CEO to accelerate the commercialization of BioBTX technology. BioBTX is located in Groningen, the Netherlands on the Zernike Science park, with close proximity to academic and industrial top centres and facilities. The pilot plant will be located in Zernike Advanced Processing (ZAP), which houses pilot plant and infrastructural facilities for SME and Academia.
Currently BioBTX employs a multidisciplinary team of 4 people with skills in chemical engineering, chemistry, catalysis, analytical chemistry and business. Moreover, via projects with RUG and Syncom another 5 fte are involved in the development of BioBTX technology which adds a wealth of expertise in organic chemistry, chemical engineering and analytical chemistry on Professor, Ph.D., Post-doc and Master level. BioBTX and associated organizations have filed 3 patent applications and 2 publications in the field of catalytic pyrolysis and downstream processing. BioBTX B.V. aims to become a leading technology company providing engineering services and key technologies to companies that aim to produce bio-aromatics or bio-oil, feedstock owners and engineering companies specialized in building chemical plants.


Role in project:
•    Catalytic and pyrolysis reactor units on lab and pilot scale: Evaluation of various polymer feedstocks on different scales. Catalyst design and testing at lab/bench and pilot plant scale.
•    Design of specific process units (pyrolysis and catalytic reactors).
•    Techno-economic evaluation, LCA modelling.
•    Commercialization of technology via pilot plant and partnerships.


Imperial College London

Imperial College (IC) is one of the largest research-driven Universities in the UK and has a long established international reputation for high quality research in science and engineering. Its Department of Chemical Engineering is regarded as one of the top in teaching and research in its field. This has been recognised by the UK’s Research Assessment Exercises of 2001 and 2008 and the last Research Excellence Framework (2014), which have ranked it as one of the two best chemical engineering departments in the country, as well as in the QS Rankings, which have consistently placed it among the top 10 in the world in the last few years.
The Department of Chemical Engineering has 40 academic staff, 120 postdoctoral research associates and fellows, and 45 support staff, as well as 500 undergraduate, 150 MSc and nearly 200 PhD students. Its research budget is of nearly £15M, with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the European Commission and industry being the main funders. The Advanced Fuels Group led by Dr Marcos Millan aims to provide high-quality bench scale experimental data in support of pilot and larger scale plant developments. The group has participated in several research projects at national and EU level. Among its industrial funders have been BP, Johnson Matthey, Petronas, Sasol and Tullow Oil.


Role in project:
•    Characterisation of behaviour of plastic wastes in pyrolysis and co-pyrolysis.
•    Assessment of impact of operating conditions and reactor configuration on product characteristics and process kinetics to aid on pyrolyser/cracker design.
•    Optimised design of pyrolysis and further processing units.


University of Twente

UTwente is a young, entrepreneurial research university situated between the cities of Enschede and Hengelo in the Netherlands. Together, 3,300 scientists and professionals carry out ground-breaking research, bring about socially relevant innovation, and provide inspiring teaching for more than 10,000 students. To us, entrepreneurship comes as second nature. Research ultimately combines scientific excellence with a sharp eye for economic and societal impact: the UT is highly successful as business generator, with over 50 new spin-off companies annually.
The research cluster Membrane Science and Technology (MST) of the University of Twente, consists of seven collaborating research groups each with their own main focus, competences and expertise in the field of membranes. Combined we cover all competences as a multidisciplinary knowledge chain to tailor membrane design, morphology and characteristics on a molecular level to control mass transport in macro scale applications. Our mission is to make a valuable contribution to today’s global challenges – water, energy and food – with our combined competences and expertise. Additional to the academic research groups, the European Membrane Insititute Twente (EMI) is part of the MST-cluster and aims to valorise and transfer the academic results and know-how into demonstrated membrane products, processes and technology for the industry. EMI Twente was found in 1995 and has since then worked on more than 460 projects for more than 180 industrial organizations. As a whole, the MST-cluster consists of >65 people among which 35-40 Ph.D. students and Postdocs, 10 researchers, and 11 academic staff members.


Role in project:

•    Contact to membrane supplier for samples (lab to pilot scale).
•    Investigation of separation performance of commercial membrane samples (lab/bench scale) for liquid or vapor feed mixtures from the alkylation reactor focused on the separation of olefins/aromatics.


KERIONICS S.L.

KERIONICS is a SME Technological Base Company, founded in 2014 as Spin-Off of of the Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ) Center of the Universitat Politècnica de València and CSIC, and Kerionics is dedicated to the industrial development and commercialisation of an innovative system to produce highly energy-efficient and compact designs of industrial membrane modules for oxygen production with high purity (>99.5%) and low-cost O2. Its principal activity is the R&D in the field of chemical engineering and ceramic technology, as well as the later exploitation of its own developments.
KERIONICS possesses the inherent R&D attitude since it is a fully technological-based company. For that reason, all the experience dedicated to the development of ceramic advance materials, with tailored and enhanced properties for oxygen gas separation, and energy conversion through fuel cells, is transposed to the discovering of new materials and procedures for well-structured layered membranes. KERIONICS allocate two exclusive patents focussed on advanced materials for acting as oxygen membrane ionic separation, coming from Institute of Chemical Technology (SPAIN). In addition, it holds the know-how of their employees and advisors, representing more than 15 years of ceramic advance materials development in the field of energy applications. Moreover, KERIONCS has a joint venture with the multinational company FERRO for the development of industrial and integrated oxygen generators.


Role in project:

•    Design, building and testing of oxycombustion membrane reactor for complete combustion of fuel gas.
•    Evaluation of the valorization of different fuel side streams.
•    Coordination of project communication and dissemination plan.


URBASER, S.A.

URBASER S.A. is a multinational environmental service provider based in Madrid, Spain, and owned by the CNTY Holding Group. In 2016, the company achieved net sales of 1,602 M€ and made investments of 146.3 M€ from which 7.8 M€ corresponded to R&D, making Urbaser a leader in waste collection, waste to energy development and other services. URBASER´s extensive experience in both, the waste treatment and collection markets, together with its commitment to technological innovation, have led it to increase its presence in the European market in recent years, URBASER also has significant operations in Latin America and North Africa.
In particular, URBASER provides services to 20 million citizens in Spain and 50 million in the rest of the world; it also collects 7.7 Mt/year of solid urban waste and cleans over 8 Mkm of streets. In general, more than 22.9 Mt of waste are treated yearly and over 1,175 GWh are generated from waste, avoiding the emission of 1.32 Mt/year of CO2. URBASER manages more than 730.000 t/year of dangerous and non-dangerous industrial waste by using its 54 management installations and 14 laboratories. URBASER oversees the whole value chain while providing its services, from project design and fulfilment to its funding and execution. Success factors in this model are a professional and highly qualified team (more than 30,000 employees all around the world) and the incorporation of innovation in all processes and assets key to the service, which enables offering clients sustainable urban solutions adapted to each environment.


Role in project:

•    Definition of incoming plastic mixtures and composites.
•    Analysis and design of pre-treatment systems.
•    Design and construction of pilot plant modifications.
•    Commissioning, validation and operation of the pilot plant.

 

Contact

 

If you would like to learn more about the iCAREPLAST project, specific project partners or project results please direct your enquiry to the relevant organisation listed here:

Project Coordinator (CSIC):
José M. Serra, email: jmserra@itq.upv.es, phone  +34 963879448

 

Coordination Team (CSIC):
Laura Almar, email: lauallia@itq.upv.es, phone +34 963877809

For additional information please contact:
icareplast@itq.upv.es