Afterlife

Company/Organisation type: Other

Focus area/active in: 

• Bio-based Chemistry
• Bio-based Materials
• Engineering / Scale-up
• Enzyme Technologies & Bioprocesses
• Packaging
• Platform / Conversion Technology

About:

Advanced Filtration TEchnologies for the Recovery and Later conversIon of relevant Fractions from wastEwater Project summary The AFTERLIFE project proposes a flexible, cost- and resource-efficient process for recovering and valorizing the relevant fractions from wastewater. It will represent an advance on existing approaches to wastewater treatment, which rely on physic-chemical and biological methods. The AFTERLIFE process will separate out the different components of value using a series of membrane filtration units that will separate all the solids in the wastewater. These will then treated to obtain high-pure extracts and metabolites or, alternatively, to be converted into value-added biopolymers; polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). In addition to the value extracted from the solids, the remaining outflow of the water will be ultrapure and ready for re-use. Objectives The overall goal of the project is to demonstrate at TRL-5 a promising innovative wastewater treatment with the simultaneous recovery of compounds of interest and the conversion of the rest of the organic matter into a high-volume added value biopolymer.

Specific objectives have been defined in each WP to reach such a goal:

• WP1 – To develop the filtration system through the use of a membrane filtration unit for the recovery of suspended and soluble solids in wastewater.
• WP2 – To develop the process for the recovery and purification of valuable compounds in the concentrates from filtration step
• WP3 – To develop the conversion of the low value-added organic matter into PHA by an anaerobic/aerobic process
• WP4 – To optimise the resources in the process following a circular economy approach
• WP5 – To design and optimise the overall AFTERLIFE process from a holistic point of view following a Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) approach
• WP6 – To conduct a demonstration at BBE Pilot Plant using real industrial wastewater and to generate the end products
• WP7 – To provide proof of economic and industrial feasibility for the AFTERLIFE process and comprehensive LCA and cost assessment
• WP8 – To promote the exploitation of the project’s results and expand the impact of the process

This project has received funding from the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 745737.

Website: https://afterlife-project.eu/

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