Archives for July 2024

The SAbyNA project, which is funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, has come to a successful conclusion after more than four years of work dedicated to providing guidance on how to develop nanomaterials and nano-enabled products more safely and sustainably.

The project was coordinated by Dr. Socorro Vázquez-Campos de Leitat and led to the creation of a comprehensive web-based guidance platform (https://platform.sabyna.eu/) which provides guidelines and tools to support the development of safer nanomaterials and products. This platform is aimed at designers, developers and producers of nanotechnology-enabled materials and products, and researchers. The platform focuses on guiding two main sectors in particular, Paints and Additive Manufacturing, on developing safer nanotechnology-based products.

Socorro Vázquez-Campos: “SAbyNA represented a crucial step forward in providing methodologies for designing and developing safer nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products. The web-based guidance platform produced in this project will be an invaluable resource for driving innovation and ensuring a safer, more sustainable future for nanotechnology.”

Unlike traditional approaches that address the safety of new technologies reactively, SAbyNA focused on building strategies to assess safety proactively in the early stages of designing and developing products and processes. This is aimed at maximising safety for workers, consumers and the environment, while maintaining all the benefits of the functionality provided by nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products.

Integrated Platform for Developing Safer Nanotechnology
The SAbyNA Guidance Platform offers a wide range of resources to support the safer, more sustainable design and development of nanotechnology, including:

• A step-by-step procedure to assess the safety of nanoparticles, manufacturing processes and the intended use of nanotechnology-enabled products more easily and in greater depth.
• Detailed guidelines covering the workflows and strategies needed to improve safety, sustainability and costs throughout the entire life cycle of nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products, from production to disposal.
• Tools, models and methodologies to assess safety, sustainability and costs in the design and development of nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products.
• Data resources to facilitate access to existing and new environmental and occupational health and safety data for conducting various assessments.
• Simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) and cost assessment tools for environmental sustainability and cost assessment adapted to the two main sectors (Paints and Additive Manufacturing).

As Ralph Vanhauten, co-owner of ThinkWorks B.V., who led the development of the platform, said, “SAbyNA provides expert guidance with resources such as guidelines and databases. It also makes it possible to configure customised cases and carry out simplified sustainability and cost assessments. To build a case, users need to enter materials, and describe the intended use and possible release, exposure and risk scenarios. These steps can be carried out using clickable menus and databases linked to the online application. Users are guided through knowledge modules on how to identify potential risks to human health and the environment, and specific actions are suggested to reduce or mitigate those risks. Finally, different scenarios can be compared, thereby facilitating the decision-making process (safer, sustainable, cost-effective solutions that maintain or improve the functionality of the product)”.

The results of the SAbyNA project mark a significant breakthrough for the nanotechnology industry, providing a comprehensive framework for developing nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products responsibly. The SAbyNA Online Guidance Platform is expected to become an essential tool for industry, developers and researchers, and will contribute to a safer, more sustainable future for nanotechnology.

Daniel Persson, an Inorganic Specialties R&D scientist at Nouryon, commented: “Nouryon is a global leader in speciality chemical products and a supplier of standard, silane-modified colloidal silica, and we joined the SAbyNA project to further our understanding of the reduced toxicity observed after the surface modification of silica nanoforms with silane. We used the SAbyNA methodologies and other assessment tools to confirm our previous studies and identify the optimal degree of surface functionalisation required to achieve the full effect on a range of samples with increasing surface coverage of silane. These findings are of great interest to producers of other nanomaterials, where similar safe design strategies could be applied during the design of nanotechnology-enabled product materials”.

Although the SAbyNA project officially ended on May 31, 2024, its legacy of innovation and safety in nanotechnology lives on. The online Guidance Platform and resources developed during the project will continue to be accessible and updated, thereby ensuring that their positive impact will carry on over time.

Beyond the Platform, the SAbyNA project community has grown into a vibrant network of experts and practitioners committed to developing nanotechnology responsibly. This network will continue to collaborate and promote new research and projects, and will make sure that SAbyNA's proactive, safe approach continues to set the standard for future applications of nanotechnology.

Araceli Sánchez-Jiménez, from the Spanish National Institute for Safety and Health and a member of the SAbyNA Advisory Board, said: "SAbyNA has transformed the complex Safety and Sustainability by Design (SSbD) assessment into an optimised, collaborative process. It has made it possible to visualise the impact of changes to the properties of materials and process parameters on safety and sustainability, facilitating informed decision making". She added: “Looking beyond assessment, SAbyNA focused on design and provided solutions to make its nanomaterials, products and processes safer and more sustainable.”

The community and resources created during the project will serve as a solid basis for future initiatives, ensuring that nanotechnology continues to support technological progress while producing safer, more sustainable nanotechnology-enabled products.

About SAbyNA
SAbyNA (Safe by Design for Nanomaterials) was a project funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme (G.A. No. 862419) which was aimed at developing safe design strategies for nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products. The project was coordinated by Dr. Socorro Vázquez-Campos from Leitat and included a consortium of 17 partners, made up of universities, technology centres, research institutes and industry (SMEs and large companies).

GAIKER's work
In this project, GAIKER, which has extensive experience in assessing the safety and sustainability of products that contain nanomaterials and in the use of safe, sustainable design tools, was responsible for developing a simplified platform for carrying out a life cycle analysis (LCA) to assess the environmental implications of incorporating nanomaterials into products in two main sectors, additive manufacturing and paints. It was also involved in developing a strategy for assessing security that was verified with two case studies for these sectors.

For more information:

• SAbyNA Project Website: https://www.sabyna.eu/
• Official SAbyNA Video: https://youtu.be/j9NGxPtl8Xs?feature=shared
• SAbyNA Project on the European Commission Portal:
  https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/862419

The European TRANSEATION project will develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of hybrid blue-grey infrastructures in marine and coastal areas

GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), is taking part in the European TRANSEATION project, the ultimate goal of which is to protect and restore the health of marine ecosystems by combining nature-based solutions, social participation and digitalisation.

This research is aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of hybrid marine infrastructures combining nature-based solutions (NBS) as a transformative means to preserve marine biodiversity and ecosystem services, while tackling key social challenges by implementing three use cases: off-shore wind platforms, coastal protection infrastructure and an aquaculture infrastructure.

GAIKER is involved in developing low trophic aquaculture infrastructure. In this demonstrator, led by the AZTI Technology Centre in collaboration with ITSASKORDA, nature-based solutions for the European aquaculture sector will be implemented through the development of bio-based compounds, technical monitoring of capture and cultivation systems during use, study of compostability, recycling of bio-based ropes, and evaluation of the environmental impact.

With this work, GAIKER is looking to consolidate its position in the field of sustainable and bio-based materials, in particular, new applications with potential demand for eliminating conventional plastic materials. It also wants to broaden the scope of results obtained in projects it has previously carried out.

Driven by the EU Commission and led by the Naval and Maritime Technology Centre (CTN by its Spanish acronym), this research will last for 3 years (2024-2027) and will involve a network of sixteen partners and collaborators, including research centres, industrial companies and environmental management organisations.

The TRANSEATION project represents a significant advance in ecosystem management through the development and application of hybrid blue-grey infrastructures in marine and coastal areas.

This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101096457. This document reflects the views of the author only. The Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein

AIMPLAS, AITIIP, CIDAUT and GAIKER make up this network, which focuses on applying bioplastics to food safety in packaging, making transport components lighter and improving agricultural practices.

The success of the MARFIL Network will help reduce dependence on oil, recover agricultural by-products and limit the amount of waste going to landfill without any recovery.

The AIMPLAS Plastics Technology Centre, the CIDAUT Foundation for Research and Development in Transport and Energy and the AITIIP and GAIKER technology centres set up the MARFIL Network to intensify the use of bioplastics, additives and reinforcements from renewable sources as innovative materials in key sectors.

These plastic materials, which have a lower environmental impact, are more easily recyclable and/or biodegradable, and are made from alternative sources to petroleum, will be promoted in sectors that consume large quantities of industrial materials, such as the food packaging sector, and in industrial sectors with high added value, such as transport or agriculture. The aim is to significantly increase their use in applications where they are the best option from an environmental, technical and economic point of view.

To this end, the MARFIL Network will develop a strategic research, development, innovation and training programme focused on strengthening the skills of these centres in terms of developing bio-based plastics, mainly from waste, agro-industrial by-products and alternative biomasses. The skills acquired will be disseminated at different levels to promote collaboration with leading research groups, increase the interest of industry in developing sustainable raw materials and products, attract talent and raise awareness about the environmental benefits of bioplastics for use in applications such as food safety in packaging, making components for the transport sector lighter and improving agricultural practices, thereby ensuring the resilience of the supply chain.

The aim is to use polymers from renewable sources to account for more than 5% of the total in Spain by 2030, which equates to around 200,000 tonnes. The success of the MARFIL Network will go a long way towards reducing dependence on oil, by recovering agricultural by-products (thereby helping to reduce depopulation in rural areas) and limiting the amount of waste going to landfill without any form of recovery.

Three main lines of research

Work will be carried out along three main lines: the sustainable and scalable processing of agro-industrial biomass to produce biopolymers, additives and reinforcements; improvements in their properties and processability through new bioplastic polymerisation techniques; and increased compostability and recyclability.

Although the initial aim is to focus on three main sectors –transport and logistics, packaging, and agriculture and fisheries– the MARFIL Network’s results will be extrapolated to other sectors that use plastics (e.g. construction, electrical-electronics, textiles and furniture) and high value-added industries (e.g. healthcare, biotechnology and aeronautics-aerospace).

GAIKER's work

GAIKER will contribute to all the strategic objectives of the MARFIL Network in order to strengthen the competitive impact of biopolymers in the market. At the level of R&D&I development lines, this Centre specifically leads several of the Network’s training areas, such as:
• Bioprocesses for obtaining microbial biopolymers.
• New routes for obtaining bio-based polymers and reinforcement
• Development of bio-based intermediate composites and products
• Study of functional validation in demonstrators and new end-of-life strategies for biodegradability and recyclability.

Thanks to this Network, GAIKER will significantly increase its technology-related training, and strengthen its transversal strategy on BIOECONOMICS to allow it to go “upstream” in the value chain. This involves training on the latest monomer and material conversion/modification/synthesis technologies and the subsequent development of bio-based products with functionality and processability based on market demand.

The MARFIL Network project is part of the Cervera Technology Centres of Excellence 2023 call published by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and financed with European funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. The programme is managed by the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI by its Spanish acronym).

GAIKER researches and develops technologies and processes for treating and recycling of lithium-ion batteries at the end of their useful life.

GAIKER carries out the following work:

•    Identifying and classifying batteries
•    Discharging batteries
•    Dismantling batteries and removing electrodes
•    Standard and high purity black mass extraction
•    Recovering non-active materials
•    Recovering active materials by hydrometallurgy
•    Characterising black mass

Más información

GAIKER collaborated in creating new technological knowledge to lay the foundations for the smart digital transformation of the model for managing and processing light packaging waste

The SEPARA project “Technological transformation of the waste recovery sector to drive an effective circular economy in Spanish industry”, in which the GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA) took part, was successfully completed after four years.

This research was carried out by a consortium of eight companies led by Ecoembes, an organisation that has promoted the recycling of plastic, metal, tetra pack, wood, paper and cardboard packaging in Spain since 1997. It obtained satisfactory results, achieving all the technical targets set and establishing a firm basis for future advances in the field of digitalising the sorting of waste. In this respect, smart systems have been incorporated at every stage of the process and a digital governance platform has been developed, which not only enables automated plant management, but also has the capacity to produce a wide range of outputs for stakeholders with different needs.

SEPARA is funded by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI by its Spanish acronym) in its aid programme for Strategic Sectoral Initiatives for Business Innovation (the CDTI Missions Programme). SEPARA was created with the aim of creating new knowledge aimed at laying the technological foundations for the smart digital transformation of light packaging waste sorting plants, in order to increase their efficiency and productivity.

To this end, advanced optical technologies, robotic systems, artificial intelligence algorithms and massive data processing systems have been researched, validated, and applied to waste collection, the sorting plant (real-time characterisation of incoming waste, triaging unwanted waste, sorting packaging and monitoring the quality of recovered materials) and to the interconnection of the collection-plant environment.

This research has contributed to expanding and modernising the sorting and recycling capacity of plastic packaging and, therefore, to reaching the target proposed by Directive (EU) 20185/852, whereby all plastic packaging should be recyclable by 2030.

Project partners
The SEPARA project has included the involvement of Ecoembes (project leader), Minsait, Atria Innovation, Pixelabs, Piperlab, Picvisa, SpectralGeo and Trienekens.

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This project has received a grant from the CDTI as part of the aid programme for Strategic Sectoral Business Innovation Initiatives (the CDTI Missions Programme) under record number MIG-20201006.