Edition 17 | 2018
Welcome to the 17th edition of the SPIRE Newsletter ! 

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









  • A New Vision for Industrial Partnership Workshop, 29 October, Vienna, Austria (part of INDTECH 2018 - registration coming soon)



SPIRE UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
THEMATIC WORKSHOP: TOWARDS INDUSTRY 4.0 - DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN PROCESS INDUSTRY, 1 OCTOBER - BRUSSELS
The aim is to explore different digitalisation related sub-topics, such as plant and process control, process design, artificial intelligence and big data, platforms for industrial symbiosis, digital skills, cybersecurity, etc. Presentations will be given by representatives of SPIRE projects, as well as by experts in the field. Please see the current workshop agenda here.
Registration is open until 15 September at this link .
STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP: SUSTAINABLE PROCESS INDUSTRY TOWARDS 2050, 2 OCTOBER - BRUSSELS
This workshop is intended for SPIRE stakeholders to review and validate the SPIRE 2050 Vision, establish collaborative agreements with member states and other contractual public-private partnerships, and give a momentum to the development of the SPIRE 2050 Roadmap. Please view the current workshop programme here.

Registration is open and you can now have the chance to partake in the upcoming workshop by registering here .
BLUEPRINT ON SKILLS, 29 OCTOBER - VIENNA (PART OF INDTECH 2018)
The New Skills Agenda for Europe has launched the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills , which aims at delivering sector-specific skills solutions. Energy Intensive Industries sector with a focus on skills to enable and accelerate take-up of Industrial Symbiosis and Energy Efficiency has been proposed for the 3rd Wave of Blueprint implementation (2020-2023). A call for implementation of Sector Skills Alliance on Industrial Symbiosis and Energy Efficiency is foreseen to be published in October 2018.

Project proposals are expected to be covering area(s) such as:

  • Skills of industrial symbiosis technologies
  • Skills of energy efficiency technologies
  • Skills of energy auditing, transition and management

Please see more information about the event and a draft programme here. To register please click here .

To reserve a time slot for your pitch, please get in contact with A.SPIRE Secretariat at [email protected] .

NOTE: As this is part of the INTECH 2018 conference, you need to register for both the session and the conference. Please register for the conference here .
A NEW VISION FOR INDUSTRIAL PARTNERSHIP, 29 OCTOBER - VIENNA (PART OF INDTECH 2018)
A.SPIRE is co-organising “A New Vision for Industrial Partnership” workshop on 29 October together with two other cPPPs: Factories of the Future and Energy Efficient Buildings. It is a great opportunity for you to network and meet experts from industry, research and public authorities from across Europe. Registration for this session coming soon!

NOTE: As this is part of the INTECH 2018 conference, you need to register for both the session and the conference. Please register for the conference here .
SPIRE PROJECTS
FUDIPO EU PROJECT: 18-MONTH-REVIEW MEETING AT BRUSSELS,
24-25 APRIL 2018
After one year and a half from the project beginnings, the consortium met last 24-25 April to present the project’s progress and new advances to the reviewers. 

First-day presentations were about the state of the project implementation in different case studies. Demonstrator leaders presented the progression status, new advances, drawbacks and to-do actions for future months. The second day, different partners presented new advances and tasks evolution to reviewers.

Do not forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn .

MORSE EU PROJECT: MORSE 6-MONTH MEETING, DUSSELDORF, 3 MAY 2018
On May 3, the members of the MORSE consortium met at Dusseldorf to interchange updates on the project execution. The meeting, which lasted one day, was held at the BFI facilities in the city. The meeting was dedicated to the review of the last actions performed for each partner as well as for coordinating the next six months of the scheduled work. Moreover, the meeting was used for discussing the system architecture of the different MORSE use cases as well as the role of each member (and its contributions) for it. The next meeting will take place in Seville, hosted by IDENER, on November 7 and 8.  

Do not forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn .
REE4EU: SECOND REVIEW MEETING IN NORWAY, 20-21 JUNE 2018 

The second review meeting of the REE4EU project took place last June in Kristiansand (Norway) and it was hosted by ELKEM, one of the project partners. During the meeting, the project officer and the whole consortium had also the opportunity to visit the Elkem’s premises at Fiskå, where the REE4EU pilot is installed.

SPRING EDUCATION AND TRAINING WORKSHIOP: HOW ARE PEOPLE GOING TO FIND THE OUTPUTS FROM YOUR PROJECTS?
Following the Project SPRING workshop in April to discuss best practice of how to get education and training resources out of collaborative projects, we are now working on an improvement to the SPIRE website to help stakeholders find outputs from the various SPIRE projects more easily. This includes all documents/ media/ case studies/ training packages etc. Our proposal is for projects to fill out a summary page for each output, or group of outputs. Please contact Project SPRING coordinator, Amy Peace .
 
Further information and the full summary of the Education and Training Workshop can be found here .

OPTIMISING SECOND GENERATION TECHNOLOGY FOR UPSCALING OF REHAP PROCESSES
On-going work within the Rehap project has been focused on the development of scaling up processes that convert biomass into high added-value products to pilot and demo scale.

In previous research, VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland developed a technique for the hot water extraction of tannins from soft wood bark and successfully transferred it to the lab at Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (BBEPP). At BBEPP , this technique to obtain cellulose and lignin/tannin fractions was performed and evaluated and successfully scaled-up to pilot scale .

In parallel to this development, partners, TECNALIA have been working on the cellulosic residue generated by the purification of lignin from the woody material, poplar.

Full results can be found here .

ISP MEMBERS ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT CoPro's AMBITIONS AND FIRST OUTCOMES
The CoPro Project has set up a Cross-sectorial Industrial Stakeholder Panel (ISP). Its currently 13 members represent producers of chemicals, steel and metals, associations, and developers of process technologies from across Europe. At their first meeting on May 29, 2018, in Frankfurt, the participants discussed the goals and ambitions of CoPro, methods and practical solutions already developed, and future plans.

KaRMA 2020 PILOT SCALE FACILITIES UP AND RUNNING!
After 18 months of running, KaRMA2020 project, which is dealing with the valorisation of chicken feathers, has achieved many challenging results. The project activities are growing up fast, moving forward from laboratory to pilot scale. In its third newsletter more details about the pilot scale facilities used to scale up feather-based raw materials are provided.

THE Indus3S PROJECT GOES ON!
Thirty months after the Indus3Es kick-off meeting took place, the project is successfully deploying its activities! Almost two thirds of the project’s timeline have been consumed and the consortium continues developing planned activities. Since 2015, when project started, many steps have been taken towards the development and demonstration of an innovative, adaptable, compact and economically competitive system for recovering and revaluing low temperature waste heat from industrial processes. The consortium aims to develop a new Absorption Heat Transformer (AHT) that will be installed in a refinery from Túpras.
 
PRINTCR3DIT: PROCESS INTENSIFICATION THROUGH ADAPTABLE CATALYTIC REACTORS PRODUCED BY 3D PRINTING
The project will be completed by 30/9/2018. The first results of the project are now published. There are until now, two peer reviewed published publications: "Pressure drop and heat transfer properties of cubic iso-reticular foams" and "Process Intensification in Nitric Acid Plants by Catalytic Oxidation of Nitric Oxide". Other results are on the way to be published.

Our project will have several presentations in CHISA conference in Prague. After that conference, the First European school for additive manufacturing applied to chemical industries will be held. The school attendance is now fully booked, and the registered participants are coming from more than 10 different countries. The agenda and venue are available on our webpage.

REMAGHIC: NEW RECOVERY PROCESSES TO PRODUCE RARE EARTH-MAGNESIUM ALLOYS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE AND LOW COST
For the past three years, Remaghic's partners (Fraunhofer ICT, Fundación TECNALIA, Catholic University of Leuven, Grupo Antolin, Relight, ITRB, Piaggio Aero, Pininfarina and Meotec coordinated by Fundación CIDAUT) have been working on the development of high-performing, low-cost magnesium alloys. The project melds the efforts of a consortium of world-class research and education organisations, as well as design and engineering firms to recycle magnesium metals from industrial waste, combining them with recycled rare earth elements (REEs) to create high-performance alloys. This work may be key in improving Europe’s sustainability to reduce its dependence on external raw materials, supporting a closed economy model of reusing and recycling rather than treating these resources in a linear manner.

HARMONI: LAUNCH OF STAIR-IPI PLATFORM
DIN e. V. the standardization institute of Germany finished its first deliverable in the HARMONI project. The report analyses the current participation of the process industry in European standardization. The mapping below illustrates existing liaisons with Technical Committees. Results that have been found will be discussed further within the STAIR-IPI platform .

PRESS RELEASE: THE REHAP PROJECT UNCOVERS AGROFORESTRY RESIDUE POTENTIAL EUROPE AS THE EIB PLEDGES € 1BN INVESTMENT
IN BIO-ECONOMY 
The European Investment Bank recently announced the launch of a new financing initiative to pump investment close to €1bn into the agriculture and bioeconomy sector. Following the announcement of this investment, the ambitious Rehap project has recently published a ground-breaking report that accurately calculates the vast potential of available waste from agricultural and forestry in Europe that can be used specifically for the bioeconomy.

RELATED ACTIVITIES
DIGITIZED OPERATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE PROCESS INDUSTRIES WORKSHOP (CO-ORGANISED BY MONSOON, FUDIPO, CoPro and CCOP), 18 OCTOBER - FRANKFURT
The objective of the workshop is to present the EU perspective on digital operations in process industries and to focus on plant-wide monitoring and control of data-intensive processes.

The EU vision on digitisation in sustainable process industries will be presented by Dr. Martin Winter (A.SPIRE - chair of SPIRE Digital Working group) and Chris Decubber (EFFRA - Technical Director). A panel with representatives from EU initiatives, industry and research will discuss the barriers and next steps toward full digitisation of process operations. The event will end with the "Process Industry Aperitif" offering a pleasant workshop conclusion and facilitating informal networking.

Attendance at the workshop is free, but the number of participants is limited. The registration procedure will be shared soon.

SUSCHEM BROKERAGE EVENT 2018
SusChem, the European Technology Platform of Sustainable Chemistry, invites you to its Brokerage Event 2018 (October 23, Brussels)!

Join for networking, matchmaking, technology scouting and consortia formation opportunities under open EU calls and beyond. Open to industry, academia, research organizations, SMEs and startups.

In addition, SPIRE will also be there with a booth, connecting will all participants on open calls and its project portfolio.

INSPIREWATER AND WaterWatt JOINT WORKSHOP (PART OF INDUSTRIALWATER CONFERENCE), 30 November 2018 - Frankfurt
The cross-cutting-issue workshop of the EU projects WaterWatt and INSPIREWATER will address a holistic view on water and energy efficiency measures regarding process and cooling water to be discussed with stakeholders from the process industry.

Certain case studies from e.g. the steel and the chemical industry regarding water and energy efficiency measures will be presented. Participants will be introduced to the recently developed online tool for evaluating energy efficiency (E 3  Platform) and get the opportunity for testing the tool during the workshop.

INVITATION TO OPEN INNOVATION SURVEY: DO YOU WANT TO SOLVE YOUR R&D CHALLENGES FASTER?
PROMETIA association is conducting a study to understand how Open Innovation can improve R&D actions of raw materials European industry. We are writing you to kindly ask you to forward this 5 minutes online survey related to this topic to SPIRE members. We are trying to reach as much stakeholders related to raw materials as possible and your help could be very valuable.

Please click here to complete only 15 brief questions.

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact Marta Macias .
PUBLICATIONS
PROGRESS MONITORING REPORT 2018
The SPIRE Progress Monitoring Report (PMR) 2018 is now available and highlights the growth of the cPPP over the twelve months to 31 December 2017. The document covers the main activities and achievements of SPIRE during the year itself and also the overall performance of the initiative since launch at the end of

The measured performance of SPIRE has improved considerably since that last PMR reporting period. Analysis of progress in 2017 indicates that SPIRE is on track to meet or exceed all its contractual targets.

SPIRE 2050 VISION DOCUMENT (COMING SOON)
The extent and the pace of the transitions that our society requires over the next decades are pushing the limits of human knowledge and our ability to deploy innovations. The challenges we face include climate change, growing resource scarcity and urbanisation, and the growing market demand for customised products, services and solutions that also ensure low health and environmental impacts, responsible sourcing and high-quality control.

In all these significant challenges, the European Process Industries and their research partners also see innovation and business opportunities. With this in mind SPIRE believes it is time to boost the transitions and has formulated a new 2050 Vision to guide its work into the EU’s Horizon Europe programme and beyond.
The SPIRE 2050 Vision will be published and made available soon.

INDUSTRY, PARTNERSHIPS: A NEW IMPETUS CONFERENCE REPORT
On 26 June 2018, Directorate D organised the conference "Industry, Partnerships - a new impetus" in Brussels. This event launched the dialogue on a new vision for Public-Private Partnerships with the industry, post 2020 .

The report on the event provides the main messages and gives some hints on what these partnerships will look like :
  • European industries need to be digitised,
  • Focus should be on more systemic innovations, and
  • We need to develop a strong rationale for partnerships with a better governance system and a wider involvement of stakeholders, workers and citizens.