CIRCULAR BIOCARBON presents a first-of-a-kind flagship biorefinery designed to valorise the Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) and Sewage Sludge (SS) into high added-value products.
The pioneer biorefinery will turn urban waste streams generated in cities into products for industries and end-consumers, including coating of direct consumer products, coating of mechanical moving parts, coating of plastic moulding tools, compostable waste bags, green graphene-based devices, biodegradable soil mulch films, solid organomineral fertiliser with biostimulant properties and liquid biobased biostimulant.
Construction will start in 2022 and the biorefinery will be operated concurrently for three years in Spain (Zaragoza) and Italy (Sesto San Giovanni). It will use cascading technologies - from anaerobic process steps (after proper pre-treatment) of mixed urban waste streams - in order to treat all the bio-waste produced by a medium-sized city. At the end of the project, a commercial-scale biorefinery will be in full operation.
The project will set the basis for the demonstration, at a commercial level, of the feasibility of a biorefinery from which organic municipal waste will be exploited and valorised to obtain high-quality products and the demonstration of a new waste treatment model for cities.
Bringing together pan-European and cross-sector industries/SMEs, research organisations, universities, regions, and countries, through projects, like CIRCULAR BIOCARBON, the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) was established in 2014, and aims to implement the Strategic Innovation & Research Agenda (SIRA), developed by industry in collaboration with the EU, operating under Horizon 2020 which work towards, and designed to realise a bio-based economy for Europe.