HaDEA shed light on R&I projects in the fields of Efficient, Lightweight, Sustainable Advanced Materials

On the 6^th of June 2024, the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) hosted a workshop on Efficient, Lightweight, Sustainable Advanced Materials - Supporting EU industries to meet the Green Deal targets. The event sparked considerable interest, attracting over 200 participants who joined both in person and virtually.  

The workshop comprised three main sessions focused on the following topics: 

recycling of lightweight polymer composite materials, lightweight dissimilar material components and structures through additive manufacturing and sustainable lightweight materials.  

Additionally, the workshop featured a poster exhibition and presentations on the IM4EU partnership, the AMI2030 initiative, and project communication. 

The event enabled the research community and industry to actively share and exchange views and ideas on the projects that were showcased. These projects on advanced lightweight materials tackle challenges of circularity, sustainability and advanced manufacturing. 

The importance of lightweighting 

As a matter of fact, did you know that in Europe, an estimated 600,000 tons of composite waste will be generated by 2025? And that the global annual fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) recycling capacity is estimated to be less than 100,000 tons? Were you aware that processing of precursors into raw materials for composites production is highly energy intensive? 

In an effort to find solutions to these challenges, the European Commission has been supporting industry and the research community in the area of lightweighting through the Framework Programmes for several years.  

The projects 

Through Research and Innovation Actions (RIA), EU-funded projects managed by HaDEA contributed to Recycling of lightweight polymer composite materials. The focus was put on waste reduction, ensuring circularity of composite materials. In practice, this can be achieved through life prolongation, reuse, repurposing and recycling. Hereafter are listed the projects that worked on materials circularity:  

• EureComp : Home | EURECOMP  
• RECREATE: Home - Recreate (recreate-project.eu) 
• MC4: Welcome - MC4 Project (mc4-project.eu) 
• REPAIR-3D: Recycling and Repurposing of Plastic Waste for Advanced 3D Printing Applications | Repair3D | Project | Fact sheet | H2020 | CORDIS | European Commission (europa.eu)   

Another set of RIAs has received EU-funding in order to create advanced lightweight materials for energy efficient structures. In this case the objective was to have lightweight dissimilar material components and structures through additive manufacturing.  

The following projects propose solutions focusing on the ability to manufacture parts with complex geometry, lower cost per component for low production volumes: 

• MIMOSA: MIMOSA Project  
• MULTIMAG: Multi-material Magnetic components | Welcome to MultiMag (multimag-project.eu) 
• MADE-3D: MADE3D (made-3d.eu) 
• MULTHEM: MULTHEM 

The last session of the workshop was fully dedicated to Sustainable lightweight materials. Through better sourcing of raw materials such as bio-based and sustainable raw materials, the projects propose solutions applicable to several industry sectors, such as automotive, marine, aeronautics and renewable energy. The following projects have been developing solutions using novel bio-resins and recycled or plant derived fibre reinforcements.   

• SUSPENS: Suspens - Design Sustainable composites (suspensproject.eu) 
• REPOXYBLE: Home - Repoxyble 
• r-LIGHTBIOCOMP: Home V2 - r-lightbiocom 
• FOREST: FOREST PROJECT (forest-project.eu)  
• FURHY: Furhy Project (furhy-project.eu)