Prof Kapelan Awarded Two EU Research Grants

The first project, WIDER UPTAKE, was awarded under the circular economy call CE-SC5-04-2019. The project is led by SINTEF in Norway and it involves 18 partners from across Europe. The project aims to achieve wider uptake of water-smart solutions by facilitating industrial symbiosis with focus on resource recovery and reuse as means of increasing efficiency, limiting emissions and developing sustainable businesses. Within this project, Prof Kapelan and Prof van der Hoek will be working together with Waternet (Amsterdam water company) and NPSP (technology developing company) to develop, evaluate, optimise and demonstrate  the production of a new bio-composite material and related products. The new material is made out of by-products of wastewater treatment, drinking water treatment and surface water management, i.e. by-products across the urban water cycle. TU Delft will be leading the work package on assessment and optimisation of circularity and efficiency of symbiotic solutions. This will involve developing a framework with new metrics, methods and tools for assessing and optimising the efficiency of symbiotic solutions (such as bio-composite material) by using life-cycle, metabolism type and other analyses. In addition, TU Delft will develop and apply methodology for assessing the health and quality risks associated with new symbiotic solutions and related products. The WIDER UPTAKE project starts in May this year and will last 4 years. The project budget is 11.6 million € of which 791,000 € was awarded to TU Delft.

The second project, WATERAGRI, was awarded under the SFS-23-2019 call. The project is led by the Lund University in Sweden and it involves 23 partners, including 10 companies from across Europe. The project aims to develop a novel framework for the use of water retention approaches for managing excess and shortage of water as well as improved recovery of nutrients from small agricultural catchments. Within this project, Prof Kapelan and Dr Scholten will be working on the development of a serious game for stakeholder engagement ultimately resulting in improved decision making. The plan is to develop a more generic serious game by linking to the concept of Multi Criteria Decision Analysis that is often used in water engineering to address problems with multiple conflicting goals, multiple optional solutions and different stakeholders preferences. The WATERAGRI project starts in May this year and will last 4 years. The project budget is 7 million € of which 280,000 € was awarded to TU Delft.

For more information please contact Prof Kapelan at z.kapelan@tudelft.nl.