B-FERST

• Bio-waste valorisation: integrate the valorisation of bio-waste into agriculture management plans by efficiently sourcing, storing and characterising four different sources while eliminating production bottlenecks, ensuring intermediate product quality, avoiding potential health risks and delivering a continuous supply of feedstock.

• Green fertilisers: produce eight new green fertilisers at competitive prices, using nutrient recovery and biostimulants as soil enhancers, to strengthen Europe’s domestic fertiliser value chain.

• Raw material replacement: replace 15-40% of raw materials with bio-waste, taking advantage of its macro- and micronutrient composition, to reduce European dependence on raw materials and develop a market for secondary nutrients.

• Sustainability and environmental impact: improve the sustainability of fertilisers and agricultural management by reducing nutrient losses through tailored soil nutrient solutions and biodegradable coatings that leave no impurities in soil and avoid water pollution, and minimise the environmental impact of the value chain, particularly the nutrient extraction stage, while lowering water and energy consumption and reducing the overall carbon footprint by 10%.

• Scale-up, logistics and standards: scale up industrial production to 600 tonnes of bio-based fertilisers per year with a 90% biosource nutrient extraction rate, develop new logistical approaches and a modular production plant to decentralise and simplify the fertiliser value chain, and help set EU-level guidelines and specifications for certification and quality standards while raising end-user awareness of the greater effectiveness of the new fertilisers.

Results

• Bio-waste mapping and selection: mapped bio-waste in eight European countries, developed a logistical model for its use in fertiliser production, and assessed over 100 bio-based materials, selecting components that could be formulated for any crop, soil type and climate.

• Fertilisers and bio-stimulants: used bio-waste that would otherwise have accumulated in landfills or been applied to soil without added value to produce bio-based and organo-mineral fertilisers, and obtained non-microbial plant bio-stimulants directly from agri-food by-products of vegetable oil extraction.

• Demonstration plants: installed two first-of-their-kind demo plants that recovered 93% of phosphorus from various ashes and produced bio-based fertilisers with bio-stimulants and biodegradable coatings, replacing 20-40% of the conventional mined and non-renewable raw materials with nutrients from bio-waste.

• Field performance: tested the products on target crops in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, using field and remote sensing assessments, and found that the fertilisers performed as well as conventional ones and better when combined with the bio-stimulants.

• Soil quality and barriers: improved soil biodiversity and quality by strengthening the interaction between plant roots and beneficial microorganisms, and addressed the barriers to bio-based fertilisers (bio-waste quality, nutritional efficiency, regulatory limitations and logistics) through collaboration across the value chain, enabling tailor-made dosing adapted to farmers’ needs.

Impacts

• Cross-sector interconnections: created at least seven new cross-sector interconnections within the bio-based economy, involving the sectors and stakeholders in this particular value chain.

• New value chains: established at least three new bio-based value chains by integrating technologies and strengthening interconnections and synergies, both among traditional agriculture stakeholders and through new links with other industries.

• New products: developed eight new products, comprising a range of bio-based fertilisers, a new organo-mineral fertiliser and a new biodegradable coating.

• Sustainability: improved the overall sustainability of the value chain by reducing the carbon footprint of the fertiliser production process by at least 10% and lowering environmental impact in other areas.

• Socioeconomic benefits: added value to the European fertiliser and chemical industries by reducing reliance on raw materials, supporting employment and technological advances in the sector, and working to ensure that bio-based fertilisers were as effective as conventional ones.