Project description
Switching to sustainable surfactants
The world needs cleaner, greener and more sustainable solutions in business and production. These ‘future fit’ solutions also need to be competitive. Surfactants – the primary component of detergents – are omnipresent in numerous industrial sectors. From cleaning and personal care products to agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, 17 million tonnes hit the market each year. An alternative is needed, and new technologies need to be developed towards that end. As part of the previous PoC PURE project, novel green surfactants were obtained by green and scalable synthetic pathways, resulting in two patent applications. Building on this, the EU-funded PureSurf project will introduce pioneering manufacturing concepts to produce innovative high-performance bio-based surfactants from underutilised renewable waste streams.
Objective
With climate and environmental concerns topping the global agenda, industries across all sectors are under tremendous pressure to rapidly change their existing fossil-based practices by shifting toward cleaner, greener, more sustainable (in one word: future fit) solutions in business and production, while maintaining economic competitiveness internationally.
Surfactants (17 million t/year market globally) are omnipresent in key industrial segments (detergents, personal care, coatings, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals) and companies are actively looking to shift toward bio-based alternatives while maintaining product performance. Surprisingly, the valorization of renewable waste streams occurring in large quantities for making novel surfactants has not been adequately exploited so far. The reason for this is the lack of fundamentally new technologies in this area.
With the credo: Superior performance and clean conscience, PureSurf introduces ground-breaking manufacturing concepts to produce novel high-performance bio-based surfactants from currently underutilized renewable waste streams. In ERC PoC PURE project, novel green surfactants were obtained by green and scalable synthetic pathways, resulting in 2 patent applications. Building on this, the PureSurf validation activities will include:
- Upscale at least one gemini anionic and one zwitterionic surfactant structures to 1 kg to validate their properties, using clean starting materials
- Upscale (to 5 kg, TRL5-6) at least one selected example using industrial waste streams
- Determine properties, ecotoxicity, biodegradability (also anaerobic) as well as performance in industrial applications
- Critically compare to existing surfactants, establish a business case and prepare an investor ready technology.
The PureSurf team, consisting of leading experts in green chemistry, engineering and business with strong industrial network, aims to establish a spin-off company and become frontrunner in bio-based surfactants.
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.
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
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Topic(s)
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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
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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.
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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-EIC-2021-TRANSITIONOPEN-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.
8010 GRAZ
Austria
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.