Project description
Advancing sustainable biotech with hydrogen catalysts
The urgent need for sustainable industrial biotechnology highlights a critical issue: many enzyme-based biocatalytic processes still rely on fossil-sourced or carbon-rich reactants. With this in mind, the EU-funded CirculH2 project is pioneering the use of robust and scalable hydrogenases, Nature’s highly efficient catalysts for hydrogen oxidation and production. By deploying hydrogen as a clean, circular reactant, CirculH2 aims to transform bio-based materials into specialty and commodity chemicals. The project focuses on ensuring compatibility with biocatalysis while enhancing economic and technical competitiveness over traditional fossil-based methods. Through comprehensive modelling and lifecycle assessments, CirculH2 will provide quantitative evaluations, demonstrating its potential to decarbonise industrial biotechnology and advance Europe’s sustainability efforts.
Objective
Rapid transition toward the use of renewable, energy-efficient and recyclable resource is needed in industrial biotechnology to achieve sustainable production of chemicals. However, enzyme based biocatalytic processes still mostly rely on fossil-sourced or carbon rich reactants. Efficient, scalable, selective and robust catalysts are needed to deploy H2 as a clean, circular and renewable reactant in industrial biotechnology.
Our recent breakthrough in making robust and scalable hydrogenases, Nature's highly active catalyst for H2 oxidation and H2 production, opens the possibility to meet the industrial requirements in terms of i) compatibility with biocatalysis, ii) circular chemistry, and iii) economic and technical competitiveness over fossil-sourced reactants. The overarching aim of CirculH2 is to demonstrate the successful development of one or more highly robust and scalable hydrogenases for use of H2 that selectively drives biotransformations of bio-based materials to specialty and commodity chemicals in an industrial environment (TRL6). Modelling of the reaction processes and lifecycle assessment will deliver a full quantitative evaluation of the performances and applicability of the hydrogenase-biotransformation systems. This will provide convincing evidence for the adoption in industry.
CirculH2 will deliver a scalable and robust H2-driven biotechnology compatible with the existing infrastructure that will advance European competitiveness in the sustainable and circular production of chemicals. It will minimize energy usage by having negligible resource losses and minimal downstream processing due to its highly selective hydrogenase catalysts. The CirculH2 technology aims at replacing the heavily used legacy methods of chemical production and enable decarbonization of industrial biotechnology.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences electrochemistry electrolysis
- natural sciences chemical sciences catalysis biocatalysis
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.2.6 - Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL6-2023-CIRCBIO-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
80333 Muenchen
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.