On 11th June 2025, the SSbD4CheM project hosted a stakeholder outreach webinar titled “Practical Application and Case Studies in Industrial Safe and Sustainable by Design”. The webinar brought together researchers and industry experts for the project to explore the practical implementation of the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework, with a strong focus on real-world industrial applications.
EUIndTech2025 is the new EU flagship event, in which the two cyclical events, “Conference on Industrial Technologies” and “EuroNanoForum” are merged. This year it was done during the Polish presidency of the EU Council in Krakow, Poland.
From 11-15 May 2025 took place the SETAC 2025, the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Europe, at the Austria Center in Vienna.
SSbD4CheM project was included in the latest BNN QUARTERLY 02/2025 (February 2025).
From 11-15 May 2025 took place the SETAC 2025, the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Europe, at the Austria Center in Vienna.
On 21 May 2025, during the second day of our General Assembly in M17 in Valencia (Spain), the colleagues of NovaMechanics and Entelos (Panagiotis Kolokathis and Tassos Papadiamantis), gave an internal training to the whole consortium (approx. 25 participants) on the ChemoInformatics tools that they develop, to learn how to use them for data analysis and machine learning, run exposure scenarios, calculate atomistic desriptors, run already developed machine learning model and understanding their output (e.g. applicability domain).
During the session entitled “Investigation of Chemicals and Materials Safety through the Isalos, Enalos and Eos Cloud Platform tools and functionalities”, participants learned to use computational tools powered by the Enalos Cloud Platform, Eos Cloud Platform, and the functionalities/workflows of Isalos Analytics Platform, to predict the properties of a range of chemicals and materials for a range of case studies. Additionally, all partners discussed ideas about the applicability of these tools within the project.
On 20-21 May 2025 SSbD4CheM consortium met in Valencia (Spain) for our M17 General Assembly in the facilities of ITENE, our experts in SSbD, leading the work package dealing with the sustainability assessment across the life cycle assessment (LCA).
We kicked off the meeting with a warm welcome from Carmen Sánchez (technical director of ITENE) and our coordinator, Milica Velimirovic from VITO, setting the stage for the WP presentations showcasing the progress in the project.
A special spotlight of the day was on our internal case studies in automotive, textiles, and cosmetics, where our colleagues from WOOD K plus (Claudia Pretschuh), CTCR (Eduardo Santamaría) and NIC (Ondrej Panak) updated us with the developments and findings — it was inspiring to see how SSbD is being applied across diverse sectors!
The second day of the meeting started with a pitch presentation session of some of our Early Career Researchers on their last research:
After that, ITENE colleagues guided us through their impressive labs, showing us their equipment and all the different processes they are able to do!
The meeting ended with an internal training on ChemInformatics tools by our colleagues from NovaMechanics and Entelos (Panagiotis Kolokathis and Tassos Papadiamantis).
Huge thanks to ITENE and their whole team behind for being a great host, ensuring a smooth meeting, bringing all us to Valencia and giving us a real culinary journey featuring many local specialities, where paella, of course, was not missing!!
Some highlights of the 2 sunny days in Valencia:
SSbD4CheM project was included in the latest BNN QUARTERLY 04/2024 (December 2024).
Early April 2025, on 08.04.2025, kicked off the new Collab4Resilience (C4R) iniciative, as a joining effort of the EU-funded projects in advanced materials and nanoscience.
Ivana Burzic is Project Leader at Wood K plus, a research organisation in the field of wood and wood-related renewable resources in Linz, Austria. Within SSbD4CheM, she leads the work package dealing with the development and validation of novel materials for the three case studies, with fulfilled sustainability and safety aspects.
Tell us a bit about yourself. What is your area of expertise?
Ivana Burzic: I have many years of experience in researching thermoplastic-based materials/formulation development and their application to various polymer processing technologies. I hold a position at Wood K plus R&D Center (Austria) as International Project Manager in the Bio-based Composites and Processes (BCP) team. Previously, I studied Organic Chemistry and Polymer Engineering from the University of Belgrade (Serbia), and I’m interested in sustainable and circular materials for different application areas. Before joining Wood K plus, I spent 3 years at the Johannes Kepler University (Austria) at Institute of Polymer Extrusion and Compounding, where I worked closely with students as a research associate. During this time, I enjoyed teaching students about plastic welding. I really love teaching young people, especially children, how we can change the future by having good habits and acting responsibly.
How does your specific work package “SSbD driven R&D of novel materials and Demonstration of Industrial Assay” contribute to the project?
IB: The WP7 work package of the SSbD4CheM project plays an important role as it develops novel renewable composites with optimised Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) emissions and odour for automotive applications, PFAS-free coatings for textile applications and investigates different types of nanocellulose as a sustainable additive in cosmetics in the light of the implementation of the SSbD framework. In order to fully exploit the potential benefits that innovative SSbD4CheM materials can offer, it is essential to prioritise safety aspects in conjunction with sustainability considerations. Therefore, by applying different steps of the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) Framework considering different SSbD4CheM use cases, the WP7 work package will work closely with partners from other WPs to integrate functionality/innovation with safety and sustainability considerations as early as possible in the innovation process at TRL3/4 (R&D development process), thus saving costs towards their market introduction.
What is the most exciting thing about the activities in your work package?
IB: Collaboration with international teams as well as close collaboration with industrial partners (representatives of Stellantis Group, AHAVA and KORTEKS) to address different, sometimes complex issues related to the different use case requirements.
“To fully exploit the benefits of innovative materials, we must prioritise safety alongside sustainability, integrating both as early as possible in the development process.”
From your point of view, who can benefit the most from the project?
IB: Compounders, converters for automotive sector, textile industry in general, cosmetic industry (outcomes from non-animal testing), SSbD community (learnings from concrete industrial case studies), textile companies, consumers/end users (car users, people in general from all 3 case studies), regulatory bodies (outcomes in respect to SSbD testing, non-animal testing), policy makers (outcomes in respect to SSbD testing, non-animal testing), industry in general how to apply SSbD Framework, etc. will benefit from our findings.