Background and scope
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.
This Pathfinder Challenge therefore focuses on the development of next generation technologies that turn today's problematic waste streams into essential building blocks of a future circular economy. Furthermore, it specifically focusses on currently non- or hard-to-recycle types of synthetic polymer materials (including among other mixtures of different types of plastics, polymeric composite materials, micro-/nanoplastics, untreated plastic waste, diapers, rubber, etc.), flue gases, wastewater and seawater desalination brines. Proposals must target real-life industrial and household waste streams where current recycling methods face insurmountable barriers e.g., due to impurities, the presence of noxious additives, inseparable material mixtures or nonbiodegradable materials. An important side effect is the remediation of waste streams with respect to micro-/nanoplastics, trace metals and noxious substances. These novel technologies should
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