Deadline: 22-Sep-22
The European Commission (EC) is offering grants for Cost-effective production routes towards bio-based alternatives to fossil-based chemical building blocks.
Europe needs to diversify the sources of sustainable feedstock for its chemical industry, for not only improving on environmental sustainability performance of industrial processes and products, but to also enhance their strategic autonomy and resilience.
Cost-competitiveness and scalability often remain a challenge for many bio-based chemicals. In contrast to fossil-based chemicals, they are characterised by relatively novel and comparably lower production scales, having higher OPEX costs (as well as CAPEX costs for new biorefining facilities). Accelerating the development of the bio-based chemicals portfolio will be key for growth of the bioeconomy and towards accelerating further on the fossil-based feedstock substitution.
In addition, climate change, driven by industrial emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), has a fundamental socio-economic and environmental impact. The reduction of GHGs emissions is a priority for the chemical industry, as an energy-intensive industry sector. Bio-based platform chemicals, derived from sustainably sourced feedstock and with a lower carbon footprint, can contribute to realising this priority.
Details
Proposals under this topic should:
- Demonstrate novel or improved production routes for bio-based platform chemicals, within the scope of CBE and reaching the targeted TRL, encompassing different enabling technologies. Assess and prove technoeconomic feasibility for the proposed bio-based platform chemicals, in comparison to fossil-based and/or bio-based benchmarks, where these exist.
- Apply and/or adapt existing/mature or novel digital technologies, provided that they are instrumental to achieving the project’s outcomes and scope, especially to ensure high standards of resource efficiency and environmental protection. Applications of digital technologies that should be considered in the scope are among the following areas.
- Demonstrate scalability of the process towards industrial production and market size/applications for the chemical building blocks (dedicated and/or drop-in chemical structures) produced, including identifying appropriate business models for their market uptake.
- Assess the environmental sustainability performance for the production (and along the full bio-based system) of the bio-based platform chemicals via Life Cycle Assessment or other appropriate methodologies (see more under Additional requirements).
- Provision for the project integrating ‘safe-and-sustainable-by-design’ generic criteria and framework considerations, in line with the EU Chemicals strategy for sustainability.
- Demonstrate the applicability and added-value of the bio-based chemical building blocks compared to the fossil-based ones, while considering the target end uses in bio-based products.
- Develop and propose a strategic roadmap for closing the competitiveness gap between well-established fossil-based routes and the proposed novel or improved bio-based routes.
- Propose recommendations on opportunities/challenges to be addressed to targeted stakeholders, including, where possible, national/regional stakeholders, investors and brand owners.
- Disseminate the outputs and learning outcomes from the project in order to increase the public awareness, and awareness of relevant industry actors, of potential benefits of bio-based solutions.
Funding Information
The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
- public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
- cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).
Expected Outcomes
Project results should contribute to the following expected outcomes:
- Resource- and energy-efficient cascading use of sustainably sourced biomass.
- Diversification on the range of EU-produced chemicals, while also growing the bio-based chemicals portfolio with high-volume/low cost and/or low volume/high-cost chemicals, depending on application, performance, and functionality.
- Higher sustainability and competitiveness of the European chemical industry.
- Reduction of direct emissions (scope 1 and 2) and indirect emissions (scope 3) against available fossil-based and/or bio-based benchmarks of the chemical industry, with a clear technical pathway to carbon neutrality.
- Public awareness and acceptance of bio-based solutions.
- Support market uptake growth and acceptance of scalable bio-based solutions.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
-
eligible non-EU countries:
- countries associated to Horizon Europe;
- low- and middle-income countries.
For more information, visit European Commission.
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