Meet the Team - DECHEMA, Germany

 

What are your main tasks in the project?

At DECHEMA, we contribute to CORNERSTONE in two main areas:

First, DECHEMA leads the “Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation” Work Package (WP6). We develop key communication materials and share updates through our online channels (Website or LinkedIn Channel). And we focus on the effective dissemination and exploitation of CORNERSTONE results. This includes promoting the project’s findings, fostering collaboration through targeted networking, and ensuring the results reach the relevant stakeholders for maximum impact and application in the field of water and resource management.

Second, together with 20FIFTY Partners and AEE we are involved in developing decision support tools for digital industrial water and resource management (WP5).

 

What are your goals?

Our goal is to raise awareness of the importance of transitioning to a circular economy and climate neutral industry through our project approach - to combined technologies for water, energy, and solute recovery in industrial processes. We aim to ensure that these technologies are understood, adopted, and implemented beyond the project’s duration. Key to this is stakeholder engagement as well as the development of a Decision Support Tool for digital industrial water and resource management, tailored to stakeholders' needs.

 

What is your motivation and what excites you the most about your work?

Supporting industries in reducing their dependency on fresh water, while at the same time increasing the cost-efficiency of industrial water use is a key focus of DECHEMA Water Management team. We are driven by the opportunity to contribute to sustainable solutions for water, energy, and solute recovery in industrial processes. What excites us most is the collaboration between science and industry, particularly in developing resource efficient technologies for water intensive industries like the steel, chemical, and pulp & paper sector. Being part of a project that actively supports the European Green Deal and drives sustainable innovation is a great source of inspiration for us.

 

Which impact do you think your research/work will have on the future?

CORNERSTONE focuses on transforming European process industries to make them circular and achieve climate neutrality, while enhancing their global competitiveness. To contribute to this goal we aim to ensure that the CORNERSTONE modules can be implemented beyond the demonstration phase and transferred to industries (supported by decision support tools). Further we support this goal by documenting and disseminating widely the foreseen environmental, social, and economic benefits for European industry, industrial stakeholders, policymakers, and EU consumers and citizens, while preparing for commercially exploiting the innovative systems brought forward.