Mercedes Ballesteros from CIEMAT (Madrid) gave the talk “Urban biorefinery: transform waste into bioproducts”. In it he presented us with various examples of how the circular Bioeconomy can help solve the problems of modern industrialized societies. We must bear in mind that each year the world population requires more energy and food, at the same time that more waste is generated and accumulated.
The so-called Organic Fraction of Urban Solid Waste (FORSU) can reach 50% of the total waste generated by each inhabitant of a city. Currently the destination of this organic waste is composting, which generates a product of little economic value. One way to improve use would be using urban biorefineries, facilities designed to transform biomass into valuable bioproducts through the action of microorganisms. The FORSU, together with other organic waste such as pruning remains, could be used in these biorefineries as raw material for microbial bioprocesses in order to sustainably obtain high value-added products, such as biofuels, intermediate compounds and biopolymers. Different projects such as WASTE2BIO or URBIOFIN have been or are being developed to develop modern biorefineries. The latter is a project involving 16 partners – between SMEs, universities and research centers – from 8 European countries and which hopes to set up a series of demonstration plants that process 10 tons of waste per day.
Summary by Manuel Sánchez Angulo
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