The ERC recently published the results of the ERC Consolidator Grant call of 2018. Kevin Van Geem receives about 2 million euro to strive for a breakthrough which will be very important to both science and society. Driven by process intensification and in combination with the enormous power of high performance computing (HPC) his ERC project OPTIMA will take full advantage of 3D printing and the enormous power of supercomputers to enhance heat and mass transfer in advanced chemical reactors by using multiscale modelling and experimentation starting from renewable feedstocks.

Covering materials science and chemical technology skills a novel silica nanofibrous membrane has been produced by direct electrospinning. The chemical structure of the silica network is designed in view of hydrophilicity control and water repellency, enabling applications that make use of hydrophobic and hydrophilic membranes, including fast gravity‐driven membrane separation of heterogeneous azeotropes

The MMAtwo project, coordinated by the Dutch company Heathland supported by a 6.6 M€’s funding from the European Union Horizon2020 Research and Innovation programme, started on October 1st 2018 for a 4 years duration. MMAtwo collaborative consortium gathers 13 partners from 6 different countries and develops a new and innovative process to recycle post-Industrial and end-of-life PMMA waste into Second Generation MethylMethAcrylate (MMA) raw material.