Resource recovery through volatile fatty acids and alcohols

In order to achieve the global sustainability goals in the UN's Agenda 2030, it is necessary to both increase resource efficiency and reduce the waste's climate impact. This project contributes by further developing biogas plants into biorefineries that convert organic waste into new biochemicals and biomaterials, creating a circular resource life cycle. The project's hypothesis is based on integrating membrane bioreactors (MBR), anaerobic degradation (AD) and bioaugmentation to, in addition to biogas and biofertilizers, also generate volatile fatty acids, hydrogen and alcohols. In this way, the waste can be converted into a wide range of end products, such as bioplastics, animal feed, chemicals, biofuels and higher alcohols.

The biorefinery will be implemented in existing biogas plants. The project is carried out in collaboration between the University of Borås (HB), RISE research institute and Umeå University (UU). It includes six work packages and several doctoral students, postdocs and younger researchers will collaborate under the guidance of established researchers for a capacity building for the future.