Public-Private Partnerships
The Public Private Partnerships department functions as a catalyst for generating innovation and scientific discoveries in collaborative consortia between society’s different stakeholders responding to major challenges and obstacles that the communities and industries face today and tomorrow.
The public private projects are typically implemented across the organization and many departments play a vital role in the successful execution.
Current Public Private Partnerships
Green and circular innovation for Kenyan companies – GECKO
The Gecko project aims to provide scientific insights and an algorithm for designing and projecting high-circular eco-industrial parks in Kenya. The project investigates if, and under what conditions, developing countries such as Kenya may gain environmental and competitive advantages from early entry into circular ways of organizing production and exchange of resources in symbiosis networks, thereby potentially establishing near closed loop production systems and reducing investments in expensive End of Pipe environmental infrastructures. At the core of this project is an investigation of the potential and scope of industrial symbiosis, i.e. where one firm’s residuals become a proximate firm’s resource.
The project outcomes will contribute to the development of a strategy for eco-industrial parks in Kenya as part of their wider green growth strategy and will be a direct input to an ongoing Danish SSC project, which is also using the Ruaraka industrial zone as a core pilot case.
For more information, please visit: http://drp.dfcentre.com/project/green-circular-innovation-kenyan-companies-gecko
Duration: 01/01/2018-31/12/2019
Funding framework: DANIDA
Aquaporin-Inside® Membranes for Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis Application – AMBROSIA
More than a billion people currently live in water-scarce regions, and as many as 3.5 billion could experience water scarcity by 2025. Forecasts estimate that water demand in 2040 will exceed supply by 50%. Seawater amounts to 97% of all water contained on Earth and can, fortunately, be converted into fresh water by desalination. Desalination processes are still expensive, energy intensive and commonly pose great negative impacts on ecosystems. Presently, no current state-of-the-art solutions suggest sustainable technologies to the Earth’s ecosystem. The current market for Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes is in part dominated by brackish water reverse osmosis membranes (BWRO). Brackish water has a higher salinity than fresh water (more than 0.05%) but lower than seawater (less than 3%). Aquaporin A/S has acknowledged the gap in the market and has developed a ground-breaking biomimetic technology to separate and purify water from other compounds based on nature’s own principles: Aquaporin water channel proteins. This technology will potentially disrupt the current RO technology, making it more energy and water efficient as well as more sustainable and cost-effective. Since we have a commercial Aquaporin Inside™ RO membrane already tested and validated at low pressure conditions, our main goal within this project will be to optimize and up-scale this to work at brackish water conditions in both flat sheet and spiral wound module formats. Aquaporin Inside™ Brackish Water RO membranes will boost our growth and consolidate a worldwide reference for us, thereby drastically differentiate us from competitors, and will open the possibility to also get into the seawater desalination market in the near future.
Duration: 01/10/2017-30/09/2019
Funding framework: This project is co-funded by the European Commission through Horizon 2020, the European programme for research and innovation.
Eco-technical solutions to remove micro-pollutants and micro-plastics from contaminated water – CleanWater
One of the major issues that the Baltic Sea faces today is the introduction of large amounts of micro-pollutants (xenobiotics) and micro-plastic. To reach good environmental status as well as to use the Baltic Sea for fisheries these micro-pollutants and micro-plastics need to be removed.
CLEANWATER aims at reducing the input of xenobiotics and micro-plastic from wastewater into the Baltic Sea by exploring, developing and comparing new eco-technology approaches.
With a focus on innovative research on water technology, the project addresses the three current problems:
1. The lack of knowledge on micro-pollutants and micro-plastic, on pollution loads into the Baltic Sea for which pollutants wastewater effluents or stormwater are the relevant sources.
2. The lack of energy efficient and eco-technology-based treatment systems to remove micro-pollutants and micro-plastic from sewage and stormwater (combined sewer overflow (CSO) and rain runoff).
3. The lack of cost-efficient high frequency testing methods for micro-pollutants and high validity testing for micro-plastic particles.
Tests will be performed both in laboratory and in pilot scale at selected waste wastewater treatment plants. The solutions will be developed in close collaboration with the end-users
For more information, please visit: http://www.swedenwaterresearch.se/en/projekt/bonus-cleanwater/
Duration: 01/04/2017-31/03/2020
Funding framework: The BONUS CLEANWATER project has received funding from BONUS, funded jointly by the EU and Innovation Fund Denmark, Sweden’s innovation agency VINNOVA and the German Ministry for Education and Science (BMBF)
Sustainable downstream processing of vaccines through incorporation of nanobiotechnologies: novel affinity ligands and biomimetic membranes – DiViNe
Purification steps account for up to 80% of the manufacturing costs of most biological drugs. In the vaccine industry, purification processes are particularly complex as vaccines aim at protecting healthy people. Any contaminant must be removed via multiple elimination steps, which comes at the expense of product recovery: yields are low, product costs are high. Technically, this is partly due to the lack of specific capture systems for “positive” separation of the vaccine from its environment. The EU co-funded project DiViNe will tackle these technical and cost issues with innovative nanotechnology-based answers.
The concept of “positive“ vaccines purification by affinity chromatography will be developed to obtain high yields at affordable cost with a sustainable approach of water recycling at low energy consumption. For more information, please visit: http://divineproject.eu
Duration: 2015-2019
Funding framework: This project is co-funded by the European Commission through Horizon 2020, the European programme for research and innovation.
Danish partnership for Resource and water efficient Industrial food Production – DRIP
By 2025 the most competitive water consuming industries are those that apply a “water-fit-for-purpose” concept and are heading towards closed loop solutions supported by front-runner technology providers, with the required level of food quality and safety and in accordance with environmental regulations. This vision reflects that ego-efficiency is the overarching rationale implying that water efficient technologies and solutions shall enhance the competitiveness of the food industry by achieving an improvement in resource efficiency and environmental as well as economic performance. This is the challenge that technology and knowledge providers shall address and which characterizes clean-tech.
For more information, please visit: http://www.drippartnership.com
Duration: 2015-2019
Funding framework: Co-funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark (Innovationsfonden)
Membrane Energy Technology Operations – MEMENTO
Climate change and global urbanization leads to increased pressure on energy and water resources. This has important implications for industrial production. In addition, population growth in Third World countries further underlines the great challenge facing us in terms of demand for energy and water in the coming decades. New membrane processes can provide potential solutions to the dual-energy water challenge. Although the use of osmotic or electrochemical gradients for energy production and purification has been known for several years, the lack of research and development prevented industrial applications of membranes for energy production and energy-efficient water treatment. Sustainable energy and increased water efficiency are key competitive factors for Danish industry and the worldwide market for technology solutions that can increase energy and water efficiency in industrial production is enormous. In this project we will develop and integrate tools, skills and technology solutions for the optimal use of energy and water resources based on new membrane technology. We are two Danish universities, two water treatment companies, a technological service institute and two foreign university groups with world-class expertise. This will ensure Danish technology suppliers and consultants with a strong national and international research and development platform for global sustainable energy and water solutions. For more information, please visit: http://www.memento.env.dtu.dk
Duration: 2015-2019
Funding framework: Co-funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark (Innovationsfonden)
Optimised syngas fermentation for biofuels production – SYNFERON
Gasification of biomass and production of syngas (mixture of H2, CO2 and CO) results in very high (over 90%) conversion efficiency. However, syngas is not suitable for storage and/or use in the transportation sector and is not compatible with the natural gas grid. The proposed project aims at the development of a new technology platform which optimally combines thermochemical and biological processing of biomass. This is based on biomass gasification followed by fermentation of syngas to biofuels. The ultimate scope is a complete design which will include energy efficient product separation, process analysis and optimization as well as comparison to competitive market technologies. SYNFERON brings together three competent academic research groups from two Danish Universities, one technological consultancy and development company in the area of energy gases, one company and one SME in the separation process area, one German gasification company and a US academic partner expert in biomass gasification and syngas fermentation. It is our belief that SYNFERON objectives combined with the consortium’s skills ensure that the project results can bring Denmark in the forefront of energy production from thermochemical/biological processing of biomass, internationally. For more information, please visit: http://www.cere.dtu.dk/Research-and-Projects/Research-Projects/SYNFERON
Duration: 2015-2018
Funding framework: Co-funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark (Innovationsfonden)