Projects

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 ecofriendly 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.

Wood or lignocellulosic biomass more generally, is a readily available renewable resource, offering sustainable solutions for our growing human population. The core wood polymers - cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin - serve as fundamental components, extending beyond paper production to produce valuable wood sugars, textile fibers, thermoplastics, and fine chemicals. In our project, we are developing enzyme technologies utilizing extremophilic microbe-derived enzymes to break down and modify lignin, remove toxic phenolic compounds, convert cellulose into wood sugars, and advance enzyme-catalyzed cellulose technologies. Additionally, the project focuses on advancing technologies for converting kraft, hydrolysis (and organosolv) and synthetic lignins into porous materials, thermoplastics, and cutting-edge catalysts.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing effects on society and the economy, there has been a significant increase in concerns about the possibility that malicious actors could return to using hazardous agents in future plots. These concerns are legitimate in Europe, where there are still technological gaps in several aspects of the CBRN Security Cycle and specifically in the devices for rapid detection, identification and monitoring of low-volatile chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and non-volatile biological warfare agents (BWAs), mainly in complex natural environments. Benchmark technologies, including IMS, GC-IMS, and Py-GC-IMS, can sample and identify the most volatile CWAs within seconds (IMS) or BWAs within minutes (Py-GC-IMS), even at low ppbV concentration levels, but cannot detect extremely low doses of low-volatile toxic fourth generation CWAs (e.g. Novichoks), nor can they differentiate biological fragments from harmless substances. To overcome these gaps, it is necessary to develop new highly selective and sensitive detectors with detection limits in the pptV range, operated at elevated temperatures (> 200 °C) to prevent condensation of low volatile constituents, high 2D resolving power and robust analytical methods. TeChBioT aims for the development of a universal detection technology based on high-temperature (HT) ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) with optional gas chromotographic pre-separation (GC) and pyrolysis (Py) for enabling fast detection and identification of nonvolatile biological and low-volatile chemical agents. The innovative technology is combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL) models to reduce the dimensionality of the 2D spectral data and enable distinguishing of bacteria, fungi, viruses, low volatile chemical warfare agents, and toxic industrial compounds at pptV concentration levels based on their unique fingerprint within a complex environment.

"The objective of the project is to answer the needs of the bioeconomy sector in well-trained graduates, able to develop innovative and sustainable bio-based products and bioprocesses, and ensure their integration into alternative value chains and different bioeconomy sectors. Bioceb consists of a dedicated 2years (4-semester) MSc joint programme, with a core in-depth training in biotechnology encompassing biological resource diversity and optimal use, bioprocess design and upscaling, and biobased products engineering for targeted markets, with complementary focus on soft skills including project management. In order to promote the development of sustainable and circular bioeconomy systems, the programme goes beyond the biomass processing technical issues, by providing knowledge of green chemistry principles, tools for socio-economic and environmental assessment, experience of facing real-life bioeconomy challenges through projects and examples of flexible biorefinery systems adapted to local contexts. Five academic institutions, the Partners, collaborate intensively to offer joint study modules in addition to their existing curricula. Moreover, a group of strategic associated partners is settled with members from Eu- and Non-EU Universities, research Institutions and socio-economic partners, to contribute to the curricula in internship and masterthesis writing and achievement of learning outcomes. "

Estonia's significant mineral resource, peat, is currently mainly extracted and exported as growth substrates for European agriculture. We offer technological solutions to produce high-value materials from by-products/residue of peat production. We are exploring two different experimental chemical valorization directions for peat. Firstly, the production of carbon nanomaterials (carbon nanoparticles, carbon quantum dots CQD), which have a wide range of applications from biomedicine to optics and electronic components. Examples: bioimaging applications, portable sensors, solar panel components etc. The application of CQDs is rapidly developing and new start-up ideas appear often. Secondly, the production of chemically modified biopolymers as high-performance alternatives to petroleum-derived products such as construction panels, packaging containers or conventional adsorbent materials. The resulting products contribute to long-term carbon sequestration, helping to balance the carbon footprint of the peat industry.

The aim of the project is to develop new types of energy materials: (1) MNC type electrode catalysts for carbon dioxide reduction; (2) new calcium-based electrolytes for calcium and related batteries; (3) testing of these materials in equipment devices; (4) Optimized devices (specifically, multi-layer filters) for large-scale reversible applications in metal recuperation, incl. selective adsorbents, electrochemical methods and absorbers for the separation of rare-earth metals and for the treatment of the residual water.

This collaborative project is an integrated fundamental study to (i) elaborate and tune approaches for fast detection of the CWA and their transformation products and (ii) propose decontamination formulation(s) for fast and irreversibly decontamination with as lowest impact to the personnel and the environment as possible. The versatile portable and user-friendly all-weather and all-terrain kits for certified First Responders and spontaneous volunteers are to design. The methods and formulations to be developed are based on the recent research developments and designed in accordance with the requirements of green and sustainable chemistry, including green chemistry metrics approach.

There is a high risk that the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 variants) continues to spread in its specific forms, including through direct contact with surfaces, and this will require effective materials and sterilization methods. Ethanol-based products have advantage in the direct contact, but we have developed surfactants with different and wider uses for disinfection. The new disinfectants contain biodegradable ingredients that remain on the surface much longer to inactivate bacteria, viruses, fungi and material viruses, incl. coronavirus. The range of new products includes: (1) POM / PLA composites made by the melt extrusion process and well suited as a coating material for the hospital environment; (2) nanoemulsions of essential oils that characterized by controlled loading; (3) treated highly hydrophobic surfaces, (4) lignin-based materials (as gels and films), which also have antiviral and antibacterial properties. They are classes of products worth developing and that our Estonian entrepreneurs could use.