Final Report Summary - TUTIC-GREEN (Excellent Tallinn University of Technology Research Chair in Green Chemistry and Technology)
Executive Summary:
The great challenge in the 21-century chemistry is related to sustainability. One possible solution is an introduction into chemical thinking the principles of green chemistry, and here ERA Chair of Green Chemistry has a leading role in Estonia in chemical research and dissemination of related information among scientists and engineers. The greatest challenge is eventual elimination of environmentally harmful chemical products and replacing with compounds having low toxicity and rapid biodegradability while retaining their desired effect, and this requires both scientific research and public presentation of results in the field. The main objective of the TUTIC-Green project was to facilitate structural changes to foster excellent research in the area of green chemistry for sustainable development by establishing an ERA Chair position at Tallinn University of Technology. The TUTIC-Green project resulted in enhanced research capacity and research excellence; increased participation of TUTIC in Horizon 2020 and other research programmes; compliance of The TUTIC-Green project will result in enhanced research capacity and research excellence; increased
participation of TUTIC in Horizon 2020 and other research programmes; compliance of TalTech activities with ERA priorities, including open recruitment, gender balance, peer review, and doctoral training; stronger interaction with Estonian authorities designing and implementing research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation; and effective contribution to regional economic and social development through excellent research.
Project Context and Objectives:
The chemical industry has been one of the fastest growing industrial sectors in Europe. It produces 20% per cent of the world’s chemicals, employs 1.2 million workers and contributes €539 billion to the EU economy1. But the European chemical industry is facing major challenges as value chains increasingly move eastward, drawn by economic growth and market opportunities in Asia. More than 30 % of jobs are expected to vanish in the European chemical industry by 2030 as a result of slow growth and productivity gains. According to Pike Research, the use of GC in a range of industrial activities will grow rapidly in the coming decade, offering significant direct cost savings as well as indirect savings in the form of avoiding liability for environmental and social impacts. Faced with strengthening global competition, the EU chemical industry has already undertaken restructuring and cost-saving measures in order to improve competitiveness. The challenge of GC is to devise sustainable strategies that meet the demand for chemical products
from the ever-increasing population - identify renewable feedstock and find replacements compounds with reduced toxicity and increased biodegradability compared with existing mass-produced compounds.
Enhancing the competitiveness of the chemicals sector requires a transformation from resource-intensive modes of operation to knowledge-intensive activities that deliver high-added-value products and services to meet the customer’s growing expectations. At the same time, the industry must satisfy the Community’s high standards of environmental care and social responsibility. Given the important challenges ahead of us and the extremely broad spread of topics to be addressed, it is clear that collaborative projects at EU level are necessary to achieve the sustainable chemistry goals.
Chemical research and chemical products are also key priority areas of Estonian national smart specialization strategy. Estonian Development Fund together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and Ministry of Education and Research has conducted an analysis on the smart specialization strategies of Estonian research centres and companies. This analysis set the priority areas for research funding from local structural funds for 2014-2020. Chemical products and chemical industry has been outline as a strategic priory under the area “effective utilization of resources” as a potential growth area establish the necessary conditions for developing the existing and emerging research
competence;
Main objectives of the project:
Establish the necessary research management principles (IPR registration, technology transfer, analyses of research application areas, launching new R&D projects) and provide managerial capacity building training for research staff;
Developing a strategy and a cooperation framework for aligning research directions and cooperation projects with the Estonian smart specialization strategy;
Increase the participation of TUTIC in Horizon 2020 and other EU innovation funds;
Enhancing the capacity of TUTIC to contribute to national and European economy;
Increase the visibility of excellence of TUTIC and increase the level of international cooperation to set-up long lasting strategic partnerships in ERA;
Facilitate organizational spill-over effects from ERA Chair management to university at large.
Project Results:
TalTech has established a strong tradition of excellence in science because of its resources, cutting-edge facilities and outstanding faculty, which is ranked among the best in the country. TalTech provides an environment where students at all levels explore, discover and learn chemistry through coursework and research. In fact, graduate and post-graduate students and research associates join TalTech from all over Estonia and from a number of foreign countries to study in TalTech research programmes in the field of Green Chemistry directed by TalTech professors. Namely, this is only GC centre in the whole region (Baltic States, Finland, Sweden, though in Finland and Sweden there are some laboratories for GC). TalTech’s scientists have found, and desire to declare their GC research principles in public. The department of chemistry and biotechnology has developed numerous new environmentally friendly synthesis methods in the field of analytical and organic chemistry. The Organic Chemistry chair studies organocatalysis, which offers several advantages including no need for metal-based catalysis thus making a huge contribution to green chemistry. Organocatalysis is
considered as an eco-friendly method enabling high atom-efficient reactions for obtaining environmentally friendly chemicals for industrial usage. In recent years also biotechnology has linked with the aim to utilise renewable bioproducts for manufacturing new chemicals and energy.
Mastering the molecular scale (as in nanotechnology and biotechnology) is the only way to yield new generations of products with enhanced properties leading to new applications in many industrial sectors. There are collected related elements of organic and bio-organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, material science, biotechnology and chemical technology where TalTech is able to participate:
•catalysis (including asymmetric and organocatalysis) in organic synthesis;
• synthesis of nanomaterials for catalysis and new analytical methods, good collaboration with nano-toxicological research;
• biotechnology and biocatalysis for biomass treatment;
• benign methods in analytical chemistry and development of new materials for that;
• mathematical and statistical methods (chemometrics and structure-property correlations).
Potential Impact:
A continuously updated project website provides access to the objectives and results achieved within the project, as well as for the promotion of planned in the frame of future TUTIC-Green events.ERA Team participated in different events to let the public know about green chemistry. The ERA Chair has successfully integrated into TALTECH with collaborative projects. In addition to the events organized by us, it is important to report our success and scientific results among RTD society in Europe and beyond. Therefore, our researchers actively participated with presentations on up-to-date TUTIC research data in international conferences and symposiums.
List of Websites:
www.taltech.ee/tutic-green
The great challenge in the 21-century chemistry is related to sustainability. One possible solution is an introduction into chemical thinking the principles of green chemistry, and here ERA Chair of Green Chemistry has a leading role in Estonia in chemical research and dissemination of related information among scientists and engineers. The greatest challenge is eventual elimination of environmentally harmful chemical products and replacing with compounds having low toxicity and rapid biodegradability while retaining their desired effect, and this requires both scientific research and public presentation of results in the field. The main objective of the TUTIC-Green project was to facilitate structural changes to foster excellent research in the area of green chemistry for sustainable development by establishing an ERA Chair position at Tallinn University of Technology. The TUTIC-Green project resulted in enhanced research capacity and research excellence; increased participation of TUTIC in Horizon 2020 and other research programmes; compliance of The TUTIC-Green project will result in enhanced research capacity and research excellence; increased
participation of TUTIC in Horizon 2020 and other research programmes; compliance of TalTech activities with ERA priorities, including open recruitment, gender balance, peer review, and doctoral training; stronger interaction with Estonian authorities designing and implementing research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation; and effective contribution to regional economic and social development through excellent research.
Project Context and Objectives:
The chemical industry has been one of the fastest growing industrial sectors in Europe. It produces 20% per cent of the world’s chemicals, employs 1.2 million workers and contributes €539 billion to the EU economy1. But the European chemical industry is facing major challenges as value chains increasingly move eastward, drawn by economic growth and market opportunities in Asia. More than 30 % of jobs are expected to vanish in the European chemical industry by 2030 as a result of slow growth and productivity gains. According to Pike Research, the use of GC in a range of industrial activities will grow rapidly in the coming decade, offering significant direct cost savings as well as indirect savings in the form of avoiding liability for environmental and social impacts. Faced with strengthening global competition, the EU chemical industry has already undertaken restructuring and cost-saving measures in order to improve competitiveness. The challenge of GC is to devise sustainable strategies that meet the demand for chemical products
from the ever-increasing population - identify renewable feedstock and find replacements compounds with reduced toxicity and increased biodegradability compared with existing mass-produced compounds.
Enhancing the competitiveness of the chemicals sector requires a transformation from resource-intensive modes of operation to knowledge-intensive activities that deliver high-added-value products and services to meet the customer’s growing expectations. At the same time, the industry must satisfy the Community’s high standards of environmental care and social responsibility. Given the important challenges ahead of us and the extremely broad spread of topics to be addressed, it is clear that collaborative projects at EU level are necessary to achieve the sustainable chemistry goals.
Chemical research and chemical products are also key priority areas of Estonian national smart specialization strategy. Estonian Development Fund together with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and Ministry of Education and Research has conducted an analysis on the smart specialization strategies of Estonian research centres and companies. This analysis set the priority areas for research funding from local structural funds for 2014-2020. Chemical products and chemical industry has been outline as a strategic priory under the area “effective utilization of resources” as a potential growth area establish the necessary conditions for developing the existing and emerging research
competence;
Main objectives of the project:
Establish the necessary research management principles (IPR registration, technology transfer, analyses of research application areas, launching new R&D projects) and provide managerial capacity building training for research staff;
Developing a strategy and a cooperation framework for aligning research directions and cooperation projects with the Estonian smart specialization strategy;
Increase the participation of TUTIC in Horizon 2020 and other EU innovation funds;
Enhancing the capacity of TUTIC to contribute to national and European economy;
Increase the visibility of excellence of TUTIC and increase the level of international cooperation to set-up long lasting strategic partnerships in ERA;
Facilitate organizational spill-over effects from ERA Chair management to university at large.
Project Results:
TalTech has established a strong tradition of excellence in science because of its resources, cutting-edge facilities and outstanding faculty, which is ranked among the best in the country. TalTech provides an environment where students at all levels explore, discover and learn chemistry through coursework and research. In fact, graduate and post-graduate students and research associates join TalTech from all over Estonia and from a number of foreign countries to study in TalTech research programmes in the field of Green Chemistry directed by TalTech professors. Namely, this is only GC centre in the whole region (Baltic States, Finland, Sweden, though in Finland and Sweden there are some laboratories for GC). TalTech’s scientists have found, and desire to declare their GC research principles in public. The department of chemistry and biotechnology has developed numerous new environmentally friendly synthesis methods in the field of analytical and organic chemistry. The Organic Chemistry chair studies organocatalysis, which offers several advantages including no need for metal-based catalysis thus making a huge contribution to green chemistry. Organocatalysis is
considered as an eco-friendly method enabling high atom-efficient reactions for obtaining environmentally friendly chemicals for industrial usage. In recent years also biotechnology has linked with the aim to utilise renewable bioproducts for manufacturing new chemicals and energy.
Mastering the molecular scale (as in nanotechnology and biotechnology) is the only way to yield new generations of products with enhanced properties leading to new applications in many industrial sectors. There are collected related elements of organic and bio-organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, material science, biotechnology and chemical technology where TalTech is able to participate:
•catalysis (including asymmetric and organocatalysis) in organic synthesis;
• synthesis of nanomaterials for catalysis and new analytical methods, good collaboration with nano-toxicological research;
• biotechnology and biocatalysis for biomass treatment;
• benign methods in analytical chemistry and development of new materials for that;
• mathematical and statistical methods (chemometrics and structure-property correlations).
Potential Impact:
A continuously updated project website provides access to the objectives and results achieved within the project, as well as for the promotion of planned in the frame of future TUTIC-Green events.ERA Team participated in different events to let the public know about green chemistry. The ERA Chair has successfully integrated into TALTECH with collaborative projects. In addition to the events organized by us, it is important to report our success and scientific results among RTD society in Europe and beyond. Therefore, our researchers actively participated with presentations on up-to-date TUTIC research data in international conferences and symposiums.
List of Websites:
www.taltech.ee/tutic-green