Assessment of scalability processes for industrial decarbonization

Express your interest in SMAR3TS secondment - Your opportunity at UPC BarcelonaTech (Barcelona, Spain)

This I3X challenge is initiated by UPC BarcelonaTech within the SMAR3TS project and requires a secondment with a minimum duration of 30 days (to take place starting from Dec 2025). Fully funded by the European Commission, the four-year SMAR3TS project started in October 2025 and unites 35 partners worldwide to accelerate resilient, restorative and regenerative transitions through research and innovation mobility. For more info: please see details in the attachments.

Necessary skills and capabilities across disciplines

• Economic feasibility assessment, TEA and LCA for industrial decarbonization
• Development of green tax/eco tax scenarios
• Understanding of industrial maturity of technologies
• Knowledge on recovery of critical raw materials
• Knowledge of hydrogen production processes
• Skills on analysis of the circular approaches to recovery of critical raw materials
• Knowledge about ion exchange
• Techno-economic analysis in industrial scale (currently only lab scale assessments are available)
• Collaboration with the government and companies needed
• Knowledge of the impact of battery waste (need for further impact assessment)

Examples of challenges that need to be addressed

- Major challenge: high costs and high energy consumption for industry in membrane distillation and nanofiltration.

- Development of green tax/eco tax scenarios

- Assess market and conditions for industrial pilots(currently an ongoing collaboration on a first pilot with an automotive batteries manufacturing company within EU R&I Actions METALLICO)

- Techno-economic analysisin industrial scale (currently only lab-scale assessments are available)

- Substitution of vacuum salt by high-quality NaCl brine in desalination processes(from seawater to clean water)

- Development of decarbonization processesto avoid evaporation/crystallization of critical raw materials

- Business casefor a chemical company e.g., on e-waste battery recovery processes

- Reduction of acidic mining or acidic mines’ treatment processes

- Recovery of materials as fertilizes for soils(developing further collaboration with the University of Palermo in Italy)

- Economic evaluation of critical and strategic raw materials recovery

- Developing scenarios for upscaling of industrial decarbonization processes (e.g. with Veolia (France), mining companies in Australia (e.g., BHP), energy companies (with expertise on heating and cooling in Finland); and water purification processes (e.g., with industry partners in USA – e.g., RIOTINTO)

- Reducing energy consumption in nanofiltration processes

- Lithium recovery from battery waste (currently,only experiments were done on the lab scale, butnot tested with the industry

- Potential collaboration with companies such as industrial projects with RIOTINTO (Serbia), Lithium-Iberia (Spain) and Savannah (Portugal).

I3X at UPC BarcelonaTech – About the initiator

1. Background info

​The Barcelona Research Center in Multiscale Science and Engineering (CCEM Barcelona) at the UPC BarcelonaTech is a multidisciplinary hub at the forefront of materials science, in the fields of micro and nanoengineering, nanotechnology and biomaterials.

2. Research Group/Company Department

R2EM group is developing research activity on development of sustainable urban and industrial waste management cycles based on resource recovery approaches promoting circular solutions of waste to product and waste to energy. Research also involves efforts on developing environmental remediation solutions for soils and ground water remediation, process and environmental monitoring and environmental risk assessment on ports.

Link to the website: https://futur.upc.edu/idioma/en
Contact:
Prof. Jose Luis Cortina, jose.luis.cortina@upc.edu

See attachment: Expertise and available technologies at UPC BarcelonaTech within SMAR3TS project and examples of strategically relevant I3X Initiatives

Alignment to Work-Packages:

SMAR3TS domains that are relevant to the work of UPC BarcelonaTech organization/research and innovation team are:

• Nutrition:e.g., upcycling process of agri-food waste, sustainable food packaging
• Mobility: sustainable mobility and digitalization, processes for critical material recovery and reuse in the mobility sector
• Energy: energy recovery, energy transition, reducing energy consumption

Alignment to Resilience, Restoration,Regeneration (R3)

• Regenerative food production and recycling
• Regeneration processes in the pyrometallurgical industry
• Restoration: recovery and reuse critical raw materials for the future of mobility
• Restoration: maximizing water reuse and water recovery through smart, circular and integrated solutions for sustainable energy use and production

Note:

The expression of interest for the secondment at UPC BarcelonaTech must be submitted via the platform. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and you will be contacted as soon as possible. For any questions, please contact: info@smar3ts.eu