Mariliis Kimm

This Centre of Excellence (CoE) focuses on fostering innovation in resource efficiency, promoting circular economy practices, utilizing local resources, ensuring safe material circulation, and educating researchers to reduce environmental impacts. It centers around four key areas: Strategic Mineral Resources (SMR), Carbon-Based Resources (CBR), Circular Technologies Upscaling (CTU), and Circular Business Eco-System and Modeling (CBEM). The SMR group maps critical materials in waste streams, including renewables, for extraction and reuse while minimizing hazardous waste. The CBR group develops eco-friendly pathways for essential chemicals and plastics, also assessing their environmental impact. The CTU group pioneers waste reduction and recycling methods for aqueous, and solid waste, incl. water purification. The CBEM group analyzes sustainable business ecosystems and value chains. This CoE's interdisciplinary approach will benefit both Estonia and Europe by advancing circular economy.

The project is aimed at changing the current paradigm of using oil shale by direct transformation of its valuable structural components into high-value chemicals, with the goal of developing an environmentally friendly chemical industry. The focus is set on expanding advanced methods for obtaining base chemicals through the chemical transformation of kerogens from various sources, as well as developing environmentally friendly holistic solutions. These efforts aim to enhance the efficiency of using other geological resources and allow for the utilization of already generated waste. The objective is to develop innovative uses for raw materials that create added value, find applications for residual oil shale in waste rock piles, and align with green transition strategies. The focus is on Estonian mineral resources, but the project also envisions the utilization of other difficult-to-transform organic materials for obtaining chemicals.

Asymmetric catalysis plays one of the most important roles in the modern organic chemistry providing methods for the synthesis biologically active compounds and pharmaceuticals. Merging well-developed organocatalysis with electrochemistry opens new horizons for asymmetric transformation beyond the classical thermochemical activation. This approach is sustainable, since it employs harmless organocatalysts to induce chirality and electrons as traceless and green reagents to generate highly reactive radical species under mild reaction conditions avoiding the utilization of highly toxic and expensive RedOx chemicals. The efficiency and reliability of such transformations can be enhanced by performing the reaction in continuous-flow mode. The project is an example of cutting-edge science combining different research areas of organic synthesis and chemical engineering that can be potentially applied for discovery of new and potent life-saving drugs.