FASTCARD - FAST industrialisation by CAtalysts Research and Development

To meet European terms targets, an energy paradigm shift is needed for which biomass conversion into advanced biofuels is essential.

This new deal has challenges in catalyst development which so far hinders implementation at industrial level: Firstly, biomass is much more complex and reactive than conventional feedstock; secondly development of such catalysts is traditionally done by lengthy empirical approaches.

FASTCARD aims at:

• Developing a novel "rational design" of nano-catalysts for better control; optimised based on advanced characterisation methods and systematic capture of knowledge by scalable mathematical and physical models, allowing prediction of performance in the context of bio-feedstocks
• Developing industrially relevant, insightful Downscaling methodologies to allow evaluation of the impact of diverse and variable bio-feedstocks on catalyst performance
• Addressing major challenges impacting on the efficiency and implementation of 4 key catalytic steps in biobased processes