Waste-to-value devices – circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials
Fossil fuels supply a majority of the world’s energy and also provide the raw materials, or feedstocks, for many essential everyday products. While energy provision is becoming increasingly decarbonized, the production of fuels, chemicals and materials requires carbon atoms as feedstocks. However, their production can be “de-fossilized”, by utilising renewable energy and alternative carbon sources. Likewise, a circular economy approach offers scope to reduce external dependencies and source other essential molecular feedstocks including critical raw materials from wastes.
The Challenge seeks ambitious proposals that address one (and only one) of the following focus areas:
Area 1: Fully integrated waste-to-value devices
Area 2: Understanding underlying mechanisms by means of computational material science and AI
Area 3: Cells from scratch by means of bottom-up synthetic biology
Submission: 24 July 2025 – 29 October 2025 (17:00:00 Brussels time)