UP-GRAD · Upgrading anaerobic digestion by cascade fermentation coupled with biogas-based biopolymer production
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-12-01 → 2022-12-31
- EU contribution
- €160,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Upgrading anaerobic digestion by cascade fermentation coupled with biogas-based biopolymer production
Nowadays,the inadequate management of food waste and plastics is a global concern due to its negative social impacts, economic losses and environmental damage. The latest statistical report stated that around 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted per year. In the European Union, 127 kg of food waste per inhabitant were generated in 2020. The global plastic production was estimated at 367 million tonnes in 2021, of which 22% is mismanaged and only 9% is appropriately recycled. The overuse of conventional fossil-based plastics along with their low recycling share severely damage both food chain and ecosystem health. Anaerobic digestion, which converts food waste matter into biogas, offers a sustainable route to valorising the enormous untapped potential of food waste. However, the use of food waste as feedstock in biorefineries is still at an early stage of development. UP-GRAD, which is an European project supported by the European Commission, H2020-MSCA-IF-2019 (with grant number 894515), is committed to support European efforts towards the development of a circular bioeconomy. UP-GRAD aims to improve the performance and stability of anaerobic digestion by developing a two-stage lactate-based process. The innovative and cost-competitive valorization routes for biogas foster the economic sustainability of anaerobic digestion and mitigate new potential methane emissions.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Food waste (FW) and plastic pollution represent two of the most relevant environmental, economic and societal problems in this XXI century. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of FW linked with biogas bioconversion into biopolymers constitute a sustainable route to valorise the enormous untapped potential of FW. However, the full-scale implementation of FW-AD biogas based biorefineries is still limited by the need to enhance stability and prevent inhibition during FW-AD and to overcome the CH4 mass transfer and biological limitations encountered in methanotrophic processes. UP-GRAD aims at upgrading the performance and stability of FW-AD by engineering a novel 2-stage lactate-based AD process coupled with the development of innovative cost-competitive strategies for improving biogas valorisation as a feedstock for the synthesis of tailor-made, high-quality, marketable biopolymers. In this context, UP-GRAD will focus on the enrichment of both industrially robust hydrolytic-acidogenic lactate fermenting inocula and mixed biopolymer-accumulating methanotrophic consortia, and on the optimisation of integrated AD processes and novel high mass transfer nanobubble bioreactors. State-of-art molecular assays devoted to bringing a deeper understanding of the ecological factors tuning metabolic pathways and performance, and of the structure and functionality of the communities involved in the hydrolytic-acidogenic, methanogenic and methanotrophic stages will be conducted during an academic secondment. In addition, a techno-economic analysis and technology-uptake roadmap will be performed during a secondment in an international FW management company. UP-GRAD will apply a cross-disciplinary approach, involving environmental engineering, biochemistry, microbiology, ecogenomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics and economics, allowing the candidate to create, disseminate and apply a new knowledge that will foster practical solutions for next-generation AD and flexible biogas biorefineries.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID · VALLADOLIDCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union