What we do

PESCO-UP: is a Horizon Europe project that aims to transform polyester-cotton textile waste into high-quality polyester and cotton materials for reuse in textiles to enhance the textile recycling value chain and reduce the industry dependency on virgin materials. The project includes innovative approaches for digitalized material identification, data sharing, and advanced sorting systems and the project targets up to 90% material processing efficiency through efficient chemical and mechanical separation methods. As part of a consortium of 19 partners, we focus on the technology development for upcycling of the polyester fraction towards polyurethane materials for textiles. Additionally, VITO will contribute to the techno-economic assessment on the novel PESCO-UP technologies to gain insights on the economic viability of the proposed concepts and provide recommendations for further research activities towards demonstration.(2024-2028)

CIRCOPLAST: this project aims to develop an innovative extraction technology to remove brominated flame retardants from plastic waste. After all, by also reusing these "difficult" to recycle plastics as new raw materials, the amount of plastic waste can be drastically reduced. A second important pillar in the project is the development of a new generation of polymer formulations based on the recycled building blocks on the one hand and sustainable bio-based building blocks on the other. In this second pilot project, bio-based lignin building blocks will therefore be used to produce a new generation of polymers and flame retardants. (2024-2029)

UPSTREAM: UPSTREAM delivers Circular and Bio-Based Solutions for the Ultimate Prevention of Plastics in Rivers Integrated with Elimination And Monitoring Technologies. It aims to overcome challenges related to the monitoring, prevention, elimination, and valorisation of litter (L), plastics (P), and microplastics (MP). Demonstrating a suite of 14 solutions addressing pollution at every step in the water system, connected to 7 rivers in 5 countries, will enable the co-creation of an extensive database of knowledge and sustainable business models with a focus on making information as widely accessible as possible. The involvement of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) owners, industrial partners with existing supply chains, innovative SMEs, and a water cluster association will ensure exploitation of the project solutions. The UPSTREAM consortium will thus establish circular value chains with the potential to decrease plastic litter by 50% and MP pollution by 30%. (2023-2027).

DigiLignin: Digitalization tools are expected to speed-up PU systems design with respect to properties and processes. To do so, structure-property relations and process models must be developed from theory rather than extensive experimentation. The DigiLignin project addresses these challenges of lignin-based PU design by creating a model that could predict the structure-property relationships via a combined Machine Learning (ML) and quantum mechanical (QM) modelling approach. This ML-QM model will be considered as a robust digital building block to facilitate and speed-up the design of lignin-PU.  Overall, DigiLignin promises to rationalize the design of lignin-PU and to accelerate the commercialization of more sustainable materials with lower carbon footprints. In the future, the predictive model could be extended and shared via user-friendly apps with PU users for a wide range of applications. DIGILIGNIN is a FWO project, awarded the Bioeconomy Label by Vlaio, where VITO, UHasselt and Maatsricht University closely work together (2023-2024).

CHRONICLE:  Develop a novel chemical recycling approach to process rigid polyurethane (PU) and polyisocyanurate (PIR) end-of-life materials. By using selective depolymerization, we will transform these wastes into valuable building blocks to produce more sustainable materials, guaranteeing in this way a high carbon circularity. To secure the sustainability of the new technological route, CHRONICLE will also have a strong value chain management supported by techno-economic and life cycle assessment. CHRONICLE will link waste providers and recyclers, with downstream chemical companies and PU producers, resulting in an optimized value chain with enhanced circularity, new economic opportunities and new synergetic partnerships. CHRONICE is a part of the Moonshot program, where VITO, KUL and UA join forces. (2023-2027).

FIREFLY: The FIREFLY project is the pioneering research initiative set off to drive the catalyst-based chemical industry towards electrification and to reduce external reliance on metals and fossil fuels. The current production of metal-based catalysts relies mainly on procedures that are not sustainable, as they intensively consume chemicals and non-renewable energy, under harsh operating conditions. The FIREFLY concept uses electricity issued from RES to manufacture (electro)catalysts from secondary resources, in a new sustainable approach that will significantly reduce production costs. The initiative continues the path to circularity, introducing more profitable routes for the chemical industry by using mainly spent, waste, and off-specifications catalysts from different industrial applications, including lignin depolymerization (2023-2027).