Deadline: 23-Sep-21
European Commission is calling for proposals for Ensuring Circularity of Composite Materials.
Scope
- The European composites market size was worth €16 billion in 2018 and is estimated to register an annual growth rate of 7.5% from 2020 to 2025 owing to increasing demand for lightweight materials in various energy intensive value chains such as wind energy or transport.
- However, composites are difficult to reuse or recycle as available technologies such as high-temperature pyrolysis, and grinding (to be used as filler material) are either not environment friendly or economically unattractive.
- In addition, the environmental legislation on recycling of end-of-life components and structures will mean that from 2025, for example, 80,000 tons of fibre reinforced polymer composites will have to be recycled every year in Europe.
- In this context it is imperative that technologies are found to reuse and recycle these materials in a useful and sustainable manner.
- Furthermore, new solutions should also be envisaged to allow their recycling with very few or no need to separate them without a compromise to downcycling.
Impacts
Proposals for topics under this Destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to increased autonomy in key strategic value chains for resilience industry, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:
- Resilient, sustainable and secure (critical) raw materials value chains for EU industrial ecosystems, in support of the twin green and digital transformations.
- New sustainable-by-design materials with enhanced functionalities and applications in a wide range of industrial processes and consumer products.
- Leadership in producing materials that provide solutions for clean, toxic/pollutant free environment, decarbonising industry, and safeguarding civil infrastructures.
- Leadership in circular economy that strengthens cross-sectorial cooperation along the value chain and enable SMEs to transform their activities and business models.
- Increased adoption of key digital and enabling technologies in industrial value chains and strategic sectors, paying particular attention to SMEs and start-ups.
Funding Information
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
Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
- Reuse of composite material and recovery of secondary raw materials with higher value than currently available;
- Reduction of waste sent to landfill and positive environmental impact;
- Creation of new value streams through new technologies with potential for commercial exploitation; new business opportunities and revenue flows for recycling companies, benefiting particularly SMEs which dominate this sector of the market;
- Increased uptake of novel composites materials in industrial applications e.g. enhanced lightweight designs for transport, currently limited due to costs and adherence by industry to environmental legislation and the end of life directive.
Eligibility Criteria
- Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
- A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
- 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
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