Wastewater treatment and organic fraction of municipal solid waste are responsible for the annual generation of up to 138 million tonnes of bio-waste in the EU. It has been estimated that almost 75% of this waste is currently sent to incineration or landfilling, with an extraordinary environmental and economic cost associated. Moreover, a high percentage of this waste holds a great potential as a source of recycled materials or valuable component recovery source. Wastewater contains cellulose and nutrients that could be used as feedstock for many applications. Solid organic waste could be also an interesting source of materials for added value applications (e.g., ectoine, polyhydroxyalkanoates, biomethane, etc.), to complement their conventional valorisation routes (e.g., fertilizers, biogas, etc).
Nowadays, bio-waste is usually processed by means of methods such as anaerobic digestion and composting for the production of biogas or compost to be used as fertilizer. Similarly, domestic wastewater treatment is often conducted in activated sludge systems, which present high operating costs and energy demand. These methods present a low performance, high carbon footprint and low recovery of nutrients and valuable components.
The European R&I project DEEP PURPLE has developed innovative processes of production and purification of different added value products. These processes are based on the recovery of bioproducts from the treatment of urban bio-waste as an inexpensive and sustainable carbon or/and nutrient source for biomass growth to be further transformed into high added-value products for different industrial sectors.
The planned CEN Workshop defines novel processes on production and purification of added value products. The CEN Workshop will specify extraction and purification processes of two added value products, that will be included in two CWAs:
- ectoine obtained from biogas;
- polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) biopolymers from wastewater.
The kick-off meeting will be held on 2022-05-17, from 10.00 to 12.00 CEST as a web-meeting. People interested to participate in the kick-off meeting can contact Ms. Elena GAYO (egayo@une.org).
All interested parties are invited to submit comments on the draft Project Plan to the Workshop secretary, Ms. Elena GAYO (egayo@une.org), by Friday 13 May 2022. You are kindly requested to use the commenting form below.
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