The University of Coimbra joins European consortium to develop innovative highly recyclable materials
LaserLab Coimbra, is one of the main partners in the recently launched European project ReMade@ARI, which aims to develop innovative, highly recyclable materials for key components in several sectors at an unprecedented level.
English version: Diana Taborda
The Chemistry Centre of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC), via the LaserLab Coimbra, is one of the main partners of the recently launched European project ReMade@ARI (REcyclable MAterials DEvelopment at Analytical Research Infrastructures), which aims to develop innovative highly recyclable materials for key components in several areas at an unprecedented level.
With a global funding of 13.8 million euros under the European Union’s (EU) Horizon Europe Programme, the project gathers 40 partners and is coordinated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany (HZDR).
The European Union’s (EU) Circular Economy Action Plan is based on the assumption that up to 80 percent of a product’s environmental impact is determined during the design phase. ReMade@ARI therefore commits to enhance a material design focusing on sustainability, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling - in order to preserve the value of the resulting components and products throughout their use.
According to the consortium, in order to promote a wide-ranging approach to sustainable manufacturing and products, ReMade@ARI aims "to boost the development of innovative and sustainable materials for key components in a wide range of sectors, such as electronics, batteries, vehicles, construction, packaging, plastics, textiles and food, to an unprecedented level. In order to meet the challenge of creating new materials that are functionally competitive and highly recyclable, over 50 analytical research infrastructures of the European ARIE network will be used.”
The ReMade@ARI platform will be the central hub for all industrial sectors (such as electronics, construction, packaging or textiles) and research areas, in which new materials for a circular economy will be developed.
“We provide scientists who are working on the design of new recyclable materials with analytical tools that enable them to explore the properties and the structure of their material in smallest details up to atomic resolution”, says Dr. Stefan Facsko, the project’s scientific coordinator, adding that “this requires the exploitation of the most diverse analytical methods, involving appropriate combinations of photons, electrons, neutrons, ions, positrons and the highest magnetic fields,”. “Any scientist in academic or industrial research working on new recyclable materials should get in touch with us.”
According to Rui Fausto, one of the coordinators of the project in Portugal and full professor at FCTUC's Chemistry Department, "the platform will offer scientists a complete service, collaborating with them closely to identify the relevant properties to be analysed, in order to develop the ideal material for a specific purpose". He adds, "the most suitable research infrastructures to measure these properties will be identified among the set of unique facilities in Europe that integrate the consortium".