RESEARCH COORDINATION OBJECTIVES

The main research coordination objective of this COST Action Mech@SusInd is to create a multidisciplinary, collaborative network of European and international scientists, engineers, technologists, entrepreneurs, industrialists and investors with the aim to promote fundamental and applied research in mechanochemistry and its implementation in European industry. This objective should bring mechanochemistry into the present and future technological framework of innovation and result in the competitiveness enhancement of European chemical industry.

Specific objectives include:

1.  the identification of specific mechanochemical reactions (condensations, multicomponent, cascade, domino, organo- or metal-catalysed, etc.), which are currently prepared by conventional solution based routes leading to common synthetic problems. These problems are likely to be overcome by suitable mechanochemical procedures,
2.  The exploitation of mechanochemical transformations to enable the preparation of all types of chemicals that cannot be prepared by thermal treatment in solution allowing to access to new compounds, such as the coupling reactions of sulfonamides with carbodiimides (Chem. Commun. 2017, 53, 901-904),
3.  the environmentally sustainable production of chemicals and materials of industrial interest by solvent free or liquid-assisted grinding (LAG) mechanochemical procedures,
4.  the development of new predominantly solvent-free processing methodologies [e.g. neat grinding (NG) and liquid-assisted grinding (LAG)] and the design of new reactors to allow the industrial scale-up of mechanochemical processes,
5.  the development of equipment and procedures to perform in situ real-time studies of ball milling and vi) in silico investigation of ball milling reactions supported by further suitable experimental methods (e.g. single molecule force spectroscopy studies).

CAPACITY-BUILDING OBJECTIVES

Mech@SusInd aims at exploiting the expertise, strengthening the skills, enhancing the competencies and improving the abilities of the whole community of scientists, engineers, technologists, entrepreneurs, industrialists and investors interested in the exploitation of mechanical activation methods for innovating the industrial production of chemicals. These objectives can be realistically achieved only if all the stakeholders involved in Mech@SusInd share innovative ideas and resources within a framework of full co-operation. Innovating the chemical industry working on specialty and niche applications is a challenging task. It requires the participation of a multidisciplinary, future-oriented platform facilitating the fruitful interaction between experts of fundamental chemical sciences, process engineering, technology transfer and manufacturing, all sharing an interest in innovation and sustainability. This COST Action will provide a unique opportunity for individual participants to be involved in all the different stages of the development of a mechanochemical project and should encourage the participation with Horizon 2020 and relevant International Cooperation Programs.

Mech@SusInd defines the following list of priority objectives in order to build the capacities needed to drive innovation:

1. Identification of specific industrial needs which could be better manufactured by mechanochemistry, and strategies to transfer from lab research to market products on short, middle and long term. Entrepreneurs, industrialists, investors, decision makers and suitable research groups within this COST Action are invited to jointly propose and investigate the most convenient, viable and innovative mechanochemical routes to prepare the identified product initially at laboratory scale with a view to scaling up for the chemical industry. An additional set of expertise may be needed for the scaleup stage;
2. Integration of expertise and capabilities oriented at problem solving in specific areas of scientific and engineering research. The aim of this objective is to create multi-disciplinary task forces possessing the critical mass needed to overcome difficulties and provide responses to selected questions along the entire value chain for chemical production;
3. to create a European Society for Industrial Mechanochemistry;
4. Education of young researchers, training of specialised scientists, engineers and technologists, promoting excellence and cross-fertilization among different fields of expertise. This approach is expected to raise awareness of innovation opportunities in the chemical industry which should result in new developments in mechanochemistry. This will be done by an extensive, systematic use of networking activities offered by this COST Action programme such as the organization of periodic meetings for Mech@SusInd participants. Organisation of conferences and workshops to pursue scientific excellence and enhance competitiveness of EU chemicals manufacturers would be open to external delegates to share expertise, disseminate results, attract new participants to Mech@SusInd, stimulate Round Robin activities, promote the exchange of interests between working 4 groups and researchers and strengthen collaboration with industry. Mech@SusInd will: (i) provide support to emerging groups from countries with less research capacity, despite the high potential of research development, and favour the involvement of under-represented gender in the topic of the Action, (ii) provide support to women in the field of mechanochemistry to take leading roles,
5. discover and identify new opportunities for SMEs via the interaction with the ends of the value chains, (iv) design proposals for novel research and development involving scientific and industrial partners,
6. involve new market sectors related to pharmaceutical, agrochemical, cosmetics, energy, food additives, polymers and biomass transformations
7. facilitate growth, mobility and future leadership of Early Career Investigators, for example through Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) and through the participation to Research Excellence Programs.