The RETURN project uses eco-friendly liquid salts and low-energy electrochemical processes to recover >99% of the metals contained in waste PCBs panels. It utilises digital recognition, assessment and sorting, working in parallel with Digital Product Passport systems and a Dynamic Digital Marketplace to return recovered or repaired components and materials to EU markets. The impact is maximised by commercially attractive circular or closed-loop recycling of e-waste with facilities located directly into existing recycling centres at low investment levels. Sustainability and techno-economic viability assessments are built into all stages, assisting decision making and contributing to commercially useful performance and sustainability data to support post-project exploitation.

It has been proven that the only realistic path to close the gap between theoretical and practical ultra-high efficiency solar cells is the monolithic multi-junction (MJ) approach, i.e. to stack different materials on top of each other. Each material/sub solar cell converts a specific part of the sun´s spectrum and thus manages the photons properly. However, large area multi-junction cells are too expensive if applied in standard PV modules. A viable solution to solve the cost issue is to use tiny solar cells in combination with optical concentrating technology, in particular, high concentrating photovoltaics (HCPV), in which the light is concentrated over the solar cells more than 500 times. The combination of ultra-high efficient cells and optical concentration lead to low cost on system level and eventually to low levelised electricity costs, today well below 8 €cent/kWh and at the end of this project below 5 €cent/kWh. Therefore, to achieve an optimised PV system (high efficiency, low cost and low environmental impact), world-wide well-known partners in the field of CPV technology propose this project to run and progress together the development of highly-efficient MJ solar cells and the improvement of the concentrator (CPV module) technique. The central objective of the project is to realise HCPV solar cells and modules working at a concentration level ≥800x with world record efficiency of 48 % and 40 %, respectively, hence bringing practical performances closer to theoretical limits. This should be achieved through novel MJ solar cell architectures using advanced materials and processes for better spectral matching as well as through innovative HCPV module concepts with improved optical and interconnection designs, thus including novel light management approaches. The ambition for this project is not less than to achieve the highest efficiencies on solar cell and module level world-wide, thus Europe will be the top player for the CPV-technology.

Perovskite photovoltaics have seen rapid advances in the last decade with the promise of higher efficiency, reduced embedded energy and CO2 emissions, low-temperature production for versatile applications such as flexible photovoltaics and all at potentially much lower cost than current Si technology. However, poor stability and short lifetime in the field is holding back wide deployment of perovskite photovoltaics. The current best performing materials also contain lead (Pb) which is toxic and damaging to health and the environment. To address these limitations, SUNREY will tackle the root causes of these limiting factors through a suite of innovations covering all aspects of the device design and manufacture including improvements to the stability/performance ratio of the perovskite materials themselves, development of new charge transport and electrode materials and low-cost deposition methods that can be configured to different perovskite absorbers, development of improved stability Pb-free materials, development of a range of measures for barriers and encapsulation from layers to module and process optimisation. These technology developments will be underpinned by new approaches to degradation mechanism analysis and the incorporation of modelling to combine barrier properties data with device performance models and test data. The design process will be driven by lifecycle, circularity and sustainability analyses. Developments will be validated to TRL5 through testing by an accredited laboratory under both realistic laboratory conditions and outdoors. SUNREY targets a breakthrough combination of high efficiency (25% Pb-based, 15% Pb-free) with long lifetime (25 years), reduced emissions and cost of manufacturing compared to Si. This will open up a wide range of new opportunities for the consortium companies including utility-scale panels, IoT and MicroPower, Independent Power Sources, Building Applied Utility Power (BAPV) Building-Integrated Photovoltaics.

Lithography based additive manufacturing technologies (L-AMT) are capable of fabricating parts with excellent surface quality, good feature resolution and precision. ToMax aims at developing integrated lithography-based additive manufacturing systems for the fabrication of ceramic parts with high shape complexity. The focus of the project is to unite industrial know-how in the field of software development, photopolymers and ceramics, high-performance light-sources, system integration, life cycle analysis, industrial exploitation and rewarding end-user cases. The consortium will provide 3D-printers with high throughput and outstanding materials and energy efficiency. The project is clearly industrially driven, with 8 out of 10 partner being SMEs or industry. Targeted end-use applications include ceramics for aerospace engineering, medical devices and energy efficient lighting applications. The consortium is aiming to exploit disruptive applications of L-AMT by developing process chains beyond the current state of the art, with the dedicated goal to provide manufacturing technologies for European Factories of the Future. By relying on L-AMT, ToMax the following objectives are targeted: (1) ToMax will provide methods which are 75% more material efficient with respect to traditional manufacturing (2) Are 25% more material efficient with respect to current AMT approaches by using computational modelling to optimize geometries and by providing recyclable wash-away supports. (3) ToMax will provide methods which are 35% more energy efficient that current AMT approaches by developing 50% faster thermal processing procedures. (4) Incorporate recycling for the first time in L-AMT of engineering ceramics Overall, the consortium will provide innovative, resource efficient manufacturing processes. ToMax will develop energy-efficient machinery and processes, with a focus on manufacturing of alumina, silicon nitride and cermet parts with high shape complexity.