Areas of interest

 

Sustainable catalytic processes for industrial applications

 

Development Themes:

  1. Products and processes for replacing and / or reducing the usedell’impiego rare, toxic, pollutants and reducing energy consumption;
  2. Development and optimization of homogeneous, heterogeneous and photo-catalysts;
  3. Development of catalytic processes in cascade (multifunctional catalysts, multienzyme and chemo-enzymatic systems) and in a continuous flow for the synthesis of high value added compounds;
  4. New methods for the chemical-physical control of products and formulated in the supply chain, analysis of the life cycle and assessment of the environmental impact.

 

Specific challenge:

 

Increase industrial competitiveness thanks to the development of new processes based on catalysis (homogeneous and heterogeneous), also for the production of bio-based products obtained partially or totally from renewable materials.

Catalysis is a consolidated resource for organic synthesis in the chemical industry and is a solid basis for developing “sustainable chemistry” processes. Although the potential application of “classical” catalysts as well as of enzymes and microorganisms in the production of fine- and bulk-chemical is enormous, a concrete industrial development is often limited by the non-optimal performances obtained with the available catalysts or in processes incompatible with the their use. It is therefore essential to identify new homogeneous, heterogeneous and photo catalysts, and to improve existing ones, as well as the processes in which they could be used.

Creation of bio refineries for the production of products with added value from no-food culture and biomass

 

Development Themes:

  1. Development of processes based on the concept of biorefineries for the production of fine- and bulk-chemicals;
  2. Development of processes based on the concept of biorefineries for the production of biomaterials;
  3. Development of processes based on the concept of biorefineries for the production of bioenergies;
  4. Development and optimisation of (bio)catalysers.

 

Specific challenge:

Promote the valorization of waste, waste of production, stimulating innovation in the reuse of local organic waste as an opportunity for entrepreneurship. The so-called biorefinery concept thus identifies the development and optimization of innovative and efficient technologies to convert, in an economic way, composite materials obtained from renewable natural sources and urban, civil, agro-industrial and industrial waste into bioproducts (for example, building block for the chemical industry, biodegradable polymers), bioenergy and second and third generation biofuels.

The proposed themes aim to support: the development of innovation in the eco-industry sector for the environmentally sustainable production of new products, materials and energy; optimization of product isolation processes (downstreaming), also through the development of new separation matrices / techniques; the optimization of existing industrial processes for the extraction of bioactive natural compounds, enhancing the currently discarded residues.

Development Themes:

  1. Application of the synthetic and systemic biology to bioeconomy.

 

Specific challenge:

To foster innovation to have an impact in the medium / long term, thanks also to the construction and / or redesign of new bodies intended as new generation “cell factories”. Limit the formation of wastewater and by-products, reducing the need to isolate intermediate products at the end of each single reaction. Applications also include the development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostic agents, the production of fine- and bulk-chemical (including biopolymers and bioenergy), but also the removal of harmful products from the environment. In living cells the transformations take place according to a coordinated synthetic strategy, in which the product of an enzymatic reaction becomes in situ the substrate for the subsequent biocatalyst, which will act in the same reaction conditions. The development of multistep reactions in different meanings (domino, cascade, sequential one-pot, etc.) also concerns synthetic biology, design and creation of biological components and systems not yet existing in nature, redesign of existing natural biological systems for application purposes.