AFTERLIFE

• Recovery of valuable compounds: developed a filtration system using membrane filtration units to recover suspended and soluble solids in wastewater, and developed a process for recovering and purifying the valuable compounds in the concentrates from the filtration step.

• PHA production: developed an anaerobic/aerobic process for converting low-value organic matter into PHAs, optimising resources in the process following a circular economy approach.

• Process design: designed and optimised the AFTERLIFE process from a holistic perspective, following a Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) approach.

• Pilot demonstration: demonstrated at TRL 5 an innovative wastewater treatment that simultaneously recovered compounds of interest and converted the remaining organic matter into a high-volume, added-value biopolymer, using real industrial wastewater at pilot scale to generate the end products.

• Feasibility and exploitation: proved the economic and industrial feasibility of the process through a comprehensive life cycle analysis (LCA) and cost assessment, and promoted the exploitation of the project’s results to expand their impact.

Results

• Pilot activities: sampled and characterised the selected wastewaters, developed pretreatment, recovery and conversion methodologies, designed and engineered the processes based on the process model, and carried out the pilot activities.

• Process design and separation: implemented multidisciplinary design optimisation (MDO) to design the AFTERLIFE process, developed a cost-effective cascade of membrane filtration units for separating and concentrating wastewater, and achieved integrated conversion of waste and wastewater into bio-based volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and biogas.

• Products and recovery processes: optimised PHA production from food wastewater, developed methodologies for converting biopolymers into thermoplastic materials, developed a process for extracting amino acids from protein-rich wastewater streams, and developed a process for removing fats, oils and grease (FOG) using a new elastomeric material that selectively adsorbed and separated them.

• Assessments: completed and reported the life cycle assessment (LCA)-based environmental assessment, together with the techno-economic and socio-economic assessments.

• Exploitation and dissemination: identified and described the key exploitable results, developed exploitation strategies (publications, patents and theses) and a draft business model, and drew up a preliminary business plan to offer the membrane filtration technology as a service to food processing industries or through licensing to engineering and construction firms. 

Impacts

• Wastewater treatment progress: contributed to progress in wastewater treatment technologies and the recovery of relevant fractions, validating that AFTERLIFE provided recovery rates comparable to, or better than, those of competing technologies.

• Recycling and reuse: supported the recycling or reuse of at least 10% of the suspended solid fractions, in dry weight.

• Cross-sector interconnections: advanced to creating a new cross-sectoral interconnection in bioeconomy clusters and to cooperation projects through cross-industry clusters.

• New value chain and material: laid the foundations for at least one new bio-based value chain and one new bio-based material.

• Consumer products and SMEs: helped to develop 30 new consumer products by 2020 and attracted broad participation from SMEs.