MULTI2HYCAT aims at contributing to the implementation of the EU policies and Directives on competitiveness and sustainability (e.g. Climate Action, Energy Strategy, Green Growth), through the validation of novel concepts in hybrid materials design for heterogeneous catalysis.
Multifunctional hybrid materials as multisite catalysts for consecutive or cascade reactions
This includes the preparation and validation of innovative hierarchical porous organic-inorganic hybrid materials with several active sites (organocatalysts) perfectly located in specific structural positions in their framework which will be used as single-solid reusable active catalyst to carry out multi-step catalytic processes with high conversions and selectivities towards the desired final products. The new materials will allow avoiding the extra-efforts associated with isolation of intermediate products, wastes and solvents elimination and purification processes thus enabling more efficient and sustainable catalytic routes from the economic, energetic as well as the environmental point of view. The project promises to solve the limits of current organosiliceous solids, while improving the flexibility and versatility and reducing costs of the obtained catalysts, making them attractive for a wide range of industrial applications. To this end, the catalysts will be demonstrated for pharmaceutical and intermediate chemistry applications, as a concrete prime-mover for subsequent replication.
The MULTI2HYCAT consortium consists of 8 partners from 6 different European countries (Italy, Spain, UK, France, Belgium and Germany), all essential to the success of the project, and each with a specific role complementary to that of the other partner. 4 research centres (UPO, ITQ, UOS and CNRS) will carry out research activities, while 3 companies (the SMEs CAGE, and ALM, and the large company SOL) will validate the proposed processes and products at the industrial level. Moreover, the SME PNO will guarantee a sound dissemination campaign and the exploitation of project results. This concerted collaboration among top players of the EU scientific community and industry with a sound multidisciplinary and inter-sectorial approach will lead to important advancements in extremely important knowledge areas related to: materials science (e.g. hybrid organic-inorganic materials, catalysts, etc.); theoretical and computational studies; techno-economic analysis of industrial process; market-monitoring and integrated-process analysis. The innovations and advance of knowledge brought by the project will be also used for future applications in the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors and beyond.