Aim and Scope

SCOT (Smart CO2 Transformation) is a collaborative European project (supported by the Seventh Framework programme) in the area of CO2 Utilisation. The main objective of the project is to define a Strategic European Research and Innovation Agenda for Europe in the field of CO2 Utilisation.

Carbon dioxide utilisation is a broad term that covers a variety of innovative industrial processes, which use CO2 from point source emitters (and in the future from direct air capture) as a feedstock to transform CO2 into value added products. Therefore CO2 is treated as a resource, rather than as waste or emission. SCOT’s strategic agenda and action plan will intend to move European policy towards this new paradigm.

Aim

The aims of the SCOT project are threefold: 

1. Define a Strategic European Research and Innovation Agenda (SERIA) aimed at:

• Improving  the  techno-economic performance of emerging CO2 transformation technologies.
• Developing new breakthrough solutions and market applications.

2. Propose a Joint Action Plan (JAP) for Europe that includes structural policy measures  to  favour  the  transition  to a new European society based on low carbon  energy  and  the  paradigm  of “CO2-as-a-resource”.
3. Attract  additional EU clusters (universities  –  research  centres  – industries),  regions,  and  investors to  participate  in  multi-disciplinary research  programmes  and  other collaborative  actions  defined  in  the Joint Action Plan (JAP).

 

Scope

The project will consider research and innovation needs on both chemical and biological transformations, covering the three primary areas: chemical building blocks, synthetic fuels, and mineralization.  which present some common research needs and address the same stakeholders in the value chain. As can be seen from the figure below, the SCOT project is not going to address CO₂ emissions as such. It is assumed that the CO₂ will originate from a point source emitter and will be used as a post-production resource. This will typically come from an energy generator or from an industrial process where CO₂ concentrations be higher. The project will, although to a lesser extent, focus on integrating low-carbon energy sources into the transformation process. 

Figure: The European scope of SCOT

 

 

Objectives and work packages

The objectives and related work packages (WP) of the SCOT project are:

• Objective 1: To assess the capacity of regional clusters in structuring the CO₂ recycling community and streamlining the value chain for CO₂ recycling in synergy with the existing regional priorities and initiatives (WP1: Regional Assessment)
• Objective 2: To address societal, economic, regulatory and legislative barriers which may affect the development of products and material based on recycled CO₂ (WP2: Socio-economic analysis)
• Objective 3:  to  define  common  research  priorities  and  collaboration  strategies  in  addressing  the  key challenges in a Vision document and a R&D agenda (WP3: European Research and Innovation Strategy) 
• Objective 4: to strengthen European knowledge skills, infrastructures and research driven clusters via tools sharing, knowledge exchange (WP4: Joint Action Plan and preparation for implementation)
• Objective 5: to  organise  coherent  and  structured  Regional  and  European  financial  support  to  conduct research & networks in the CO 2  industries to optimize an integrated value chain of CO 2  recycling and to start its implementation (WP5: Financial Engineering)
• Objective 6: to set-up a financial framework to enable the implementation of the Joint Action Plan (WP6: Mentoring and International Cooperation)

The project work plan is divided in 8 different work packages with strong interactions as can be seen in the flow diagram below.