About the project
Unlocking the potential of waste
Biomass-usage for the bioeconomy is mainly focused on raw materials based on sugar or starch, which are associated with high costs for the environment in terms of land use, energy and resource consumption. However, cities and rural regions hold great potential of biowaste streams which, due to their heterogeneity, are currently valorised to a limited extent or used exclusively in low-value applications.
As opposed to the current bio-economy schemes dominated by sugar-based transformations, the CAFIPLA project relies on the combination of a Carboxylic Acid Platform (CAP) and Fibre Recovery Platform (FRP), to valorise biomass into biochemicals, bioproducts, feed and biomaterials. This will be possible by implementing an innovative and pragmatic approach to biomass pre-treatment.
The project will: i) convert 80% of the easily degradable organic matter in selected bio-waste to short chain carboxylic acids (SCCA) at TRL 3; ii) manipulate the SCCA fermentation process from heterogeneous bio-waste in order to produce minimum 3 different SCCA product spectra with a fixed composition at TRL 3-4; iii) recover 65% of the insoluble fiber content in the selected bio-waste mixes, of which minimum 30% for high quality applications at TRL 3-4; iv) integrate the CAP and FRP in an optimized cascade process considering biomass supply chains and demonstrate the feasibility in a TRL 5 pilot plant at the IDE test site treating 10 t/y mixed bio-waste; v) demonstrate the application potential of the produced intermediates in 5 bio-refinery concepts; vi) Demonstrate the sustainability and safety of the pre-treatment processes.
The CAFIPLA project will establish a combined carboxylic acid and fibre platform as key initial steps of an integrated biorefinery. The approach and methodology to reach this objective is based on four core components: research & development; integration; demonstration; and continuous innovation.
The consortium includes 7 SMEs of 13 participants.
