Simulation Tools for the design of safe and sustainable Lubricants

Project Information

SiToLub

Grant agreement ID: 101138807

DOI

10.3030/101138807

EC signature date 6 December 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 30 June 2028

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 5 195 467,19

Coordinated by

FUNDACION TEKNIKER
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SiToLub (Simulation Tools for the design of safe and sustainable Lubricants)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SiToLub addresses the urgent need for high-performing lubricants that are also safe and sustainable across their life cycle. While lubricants reduce energy use and emissions, many contain hazardous substances like PFAS and chlorinated paraffins, now restricted under EU law. SiToLub proposes a digital platform combining AI, simulation, and life cycle assessment to design safer, greener lubricants from the outset—minimizing costly testing. Integrated into the i-TRIBOMAT Open Innovation Test Bed, the platform ensures broad industrial uptake. Aligned with the European Green Deal and Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, SiToLub supports the substitution of harmful substances and promotes biobased, recyclable alternatives. Real-world use cases validate its impact, setting the stage for a new paradigm in lubricant design that aligns with EU goals for climate neutrality, circularity, and strategic autonomy.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first reporting period, the project has been dealing with the analysis of the SSbD framework and the analysis of the technical and practical limitations of the selected computational tools and experimental methods, defining the scope of the work that needed to be realized. The databases available for the reppresenting the different aspects of the infrastructure under development were analyzed and selected. The summary of this work is summarized in the deliverables submitted for WP2.
The development of the different tools and the development of the testing methodology for the validation took place in the WP3, WP4 and WP5. The development proceeded smoothly and the
In WP6 we worked on the development of the interoperable ontology that could cover the different fields met in the project (hazard of chemicals, materials properties and sustainability aspects), needed for the proper implementation of the tools in the platform. The work realized is preparatory for the development of the platform that should start at the beginning of the 2nd reporting period in Task 6.4.
The tasks T6.2 and T6.3 are focused on the development of the AI methods needed for the data augmentation and for the design of new chemical structures. The realization of these tasks was more challenging than expected, both because of the technical difficulty and the inexperience showed by the partner responsible of the WP. After the end of the 1st reporting period Ascora decided to leave the consortium because of the lack of competences in some of the crucial aspects of the AI development. They will be replaced by NovaMechanics for the rest of the project. Anyway, during the first reporting period SiToLub’s partners managed to build the basis of the development that should be realized during the rest of the project and Ascora could also develop an initial version of the generative AI that was needed, the molecular designer. This development is described more in details in the technical report.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

It is still early to define the results of the project beyond the state of the art, since this was only the first reporting period. Nonetheless, it can be said that we have already discussed about the limits present in the commonly accepted sustainability assessment and that we are trying to go beyond the state of the art by using the results of the performance tools and laboratory experiments to improve the assessment of the environmental impact of the lubricants during the use phase.
Other relevant results come from the development and integration of platform with the functional tools to obtain a unique multifunctional platform that can operate a complete assessment crossing different fields of the SSbD approach.